Justification for Education contribution when new school on verge of openin - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

My authority has adopted SPG for planning obligations requiring contributions towards any new primary/secondary school places where a need is generated on the grounds of the capacity of the catchment school. A request has been made by the Education department for a contribution for two secondary places for a proposed10 dwelling development on the groundds of capacity. The issue is that all the schools within the catchment are about to be replaced (2012/13) with a new state of the art education facility serving 3-16 year olds, and a new 16-18 year facility has just opened. Both establishments have been funded through a multi-million pound government grant. I feel that under the circumstances a request made on the grounds of capacity is difficult to justify, as the pupil projection calculation (which was fixed in 2010) does include a reserve capacity to take into account residential developments that have consent as well as future additional residential development. Furthermore, unless there is strategy in place that demonstrates how such contributions will be spent to increase capacity in the short/medium term (bearing in mind the usual 5-year clawback on contributions) in the context of a new school, whose design is presumably future-proofed, then it is not reasonable to request it. Any thoughts on the matter would be appreciated.