More than 1,000 people sign petition against academy trust’s government-endorsed idea of selling off primary school site for housing

More than 1,000 people have signed a petition to save a village primary school, after Education Uncovered revealed that one of England’s larger academy trusts, based 100 miles away, was investigating plans to sell off its site for housing.

Approaching 1,400 people have signed the petition “Save Beck Row School!!”, within a week of its launch, after this website broke the story of a suggested move by the Birmingham-based Academy Transformation Trust to merge the school in Suffolk, which it controls, with another one also run by the trust.

The scheme, in which the site of Beck Row primary outside Mildenhall would be developed for housing with pupils having to travel to an enlarged Great Heath primary two miles away, had gained endorsement by speakers from LocatED, the government’s education property company, and the Department for Education itself at a recent conference in London.

But the petition against the idea was started by Sarah Mower, who appears to a governor at the Beck Row school.

The petition states: “Following a press leak,* it has been confirmed that Beck Row school is part of a pilot scheme under discussion by minsters to be closed.