Housebuilding plans for an area have sparked a petition demanding new secondary and primary schools.

Three Rivers District Council leader Stephen Giles-Medhurst has launched the campaign to boost school places in Abbots Langley, urging Hertfordshire County Council to get the schools built.

It comes after developer Taylor Wimpey revealed plans to build around 200 homes north of Woodside Road, right next to an area of land previously secured for a potential primary school.

The Taylor Wimpey development site outlined in white. The area to the south west has been secured for the potential school.The Taylor Wimpey development site outlined in white. The area to the south west has been secured for the potential school. (Image: Google Maps/Canva) Councillor Medhurst, who is a member of both the district and county council, says a new secondary school is needed in the Abbots Langley area, as identified in the local plan process, and claims that the county council is aware of this but has not allocated a site for it.

The Liberal Democrat said: “With a large number of parents already having to take their children to schools in West Watford, Rickmansworth, St Albans, or Bushey – thus contrary to the council's climate change agenda – there is now an urgent need to identify a site and get-on building one.”

According to the petition, “everyone thought” work on the primary school would begin soon after the nearby Fraser Crescent development was built, in 2018, after Taylor Wimpey “gave” the site to the county council two years earlier.

Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst.Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst. (Image: Three Rivers District Council)

“It has not,” Cllr Giles-Medhurst added. “Again, local children have lost out. Now HCC say there are still no immediate plans to build it. This is wrong.”

A Hertfordshire County Council spokesperson said: “We secured the land at Woodside Road so that we have the option of providing a new primary school if one is needed in the future.

“However, there are currently enough places in primary schools in and around Abbots Langley for all the primary-aged children in the area, and that looks like being the case for some years to come.

“If we were to create more primary school places in Abbots Langley at the moment, we would end up with more places than are actually needed, which would have a negative impact on existing primary schools in the area.”

In response to calls for a secondary school site to be allocated, potentially in Bedmond Road, they added: “The district council is responsible for identifying and allocating sites as part of its local plan making process.

“We will continue to work cooperatively with Three Rivers District Council as part this process.”