A fourth primary school for Helston was granted planning permission but never actually built - because Cornwall Council decided it wasn’t needed.

Lack of school places and a fear that further agreed housing developments in the town will now only intensify the problem is becoming an increasingly frequent point of discussion, with the town council raising it only last month.

At that meeting it was revealed how all of the town’s primary schools are full for the coming year, leading to concerns over where people coming to live in Helston’s new housing estates, such as the HX1 development of 450 homes to the north of the town, would be educated.

Mayor Gillian Geer raised the problem, saying: “Someone came into my shop, saying that her daughter and granddaughter had just moved to this area from Falmouth. This child is four and there’s no school for her to go to in Helston or the district.”

She added that the only school with a place for the girl was Trannack, some three miles away, and as the family did not have transport it would require a bus journey to the end of the road and then a walk the rest of the way.

“At four that’s quite far enough,” said Mrs Geer.

She added: “We ought to be mindful. We have got these houses about to arrive in Helston, there aren’t enough schools. There aren’t enough doctors. There aren’t enough dentists; there’s nothing.”

With no council meetings in August, Mrs Geer urged the councillors to come back in September and “mean business,” saying: “Can we make a proper set of plans. Our poor little town is being left out of every round of every single thing that happens. But it’s no good them finding us money and we say we don’t know what to do with it.

“There’s nothing we can do about schools unfortunately, but someone, somewhere has to.”

However, planning permission was actually granted for a primary school to be built as part of the Hellis Wartha estate development back in 2004, with a site for a school catering for 240 pupils allocated and the road and footpath system even designed with it in mind.

A map used as part of the planning application to Kerrier District council shows a “possible future school site” marked out, to the west of the development site, near to where Hawkins Way has been built.

Subsequent planing permission was granted by the district council for a “residential development, primary school, dual use playing field, open space and details of transition road” in June 2004.

However, developer David Martin, who built the estate through his company Graceloft Ltd, said that while in the early stages of the planning application Cornwall Council, as the local education authority, wanted a school, it then decided there was no need for one.

His offer of land was therefore never taken up and the council did not start the tender process of finding a company to develop the site.

Mr Martin told the Packet: “Cornwall Council didn’t want it in the end, they just wanted the [monetary]contribution. There was no justification for [a school].

“The land was allocated and Cornwall Council didn’t want it.”

This is despite officers at Cornwall Council at the time initially speaking of “a need to improve provision in Helston to cope with the new housing proposals.”

Keith Morgan, strategic development control officer at Cornwall Council, wrote in September 2002, when asked to comment as part of pre-planning application advice: “With reference to education requirements, I understand there is a need to improve provision in Helston to cope with the new housing proposals.

“The provision of a site for a new primary school to the west of the extended transition/spur road, with a shared use of part of the recreational amenity open space allocation, would minimise the loss of development land.”

That same year the head of planning at Kerrier District Council, Jon Pender, had written of the importance of including “sufficient detail” in any environmental statement on the “provisions for providing the educational needs arising from the development.”

A subsequent environmental impact assessment, carried out as part of the successful planning application, estimated that approximately eight hectares of the site would be taken up with 250 houses with gardens, access roads, car parking areas and small children’s play areas. The remainder of the site would be the distributor road, dual use playing field - and primary school.

It went into more detail under a heading “education requirements,” stating: “Current negotiations with Cornwall County Council as local education authority are based on identifying a site for a 240 pupil primary school.

“Adequate pedestrian, cycle and bus routes have been modelled within the transportation assessment to serve a school in the proposed location.

“The applicants have agreed to contribute £1,000 per open market dwelling within the proposed residential development in accordance with the LEA’s secondary education requirements for the Helston area.”

Cornwall Council has been contacted by the Packet.