CHILDREN living in an isolated and deprived area of Salisbury will have to wait for a long promised school and it is feared some may not even get a place once it is built.

Developers Persimmon Homes were required to provide a new primary school at old Sarum condition of planning permission to build more than 600 new homes in the area, but at a meeting on Thursday Wiltshire councillors voted to allow a delay in building it.

Cllr Ian McLennan, who argued vociferously against allowing any delay, said it could mean the school’s intake of pupils will be filled by children from the new homes, leaving no places for children already living there and currently being forced to travel to go to school.

He said: “The population were welcoming of this development and the reason they were welcoming of it was that at last this estate would deliver to the people of Old Sarum some affordable housing and some services.

“There was a promise that these houses would be backed up with facilities such as a primary school. This was supposed to enhance the quality of life for existing residents.”

He said the advertised first year intake for the school, which has to be set ahead of it opening, is 105 but that a survey carried out by the parish council and the Old Sarum Community Group found there are already more than 50 youngsters who would swap schools to attend the new one should it be built and opened as soon as possible.

But existing homes in roads such as Partridge Way, which would be within walking distance of the new school, are not included in its catchment area so a delay could mean the quota being filled by children from the new homes before youngsters already living in the area get a chance to move there.

But members of the committee said it is not down to a developer to provide school places for children not living in its development and agreed to vary the planning terms, specifying that the school should be provided by 2011.

Planning officers recommended the variation be approved on the grounds it would provide a set date by which the school has to be completed and that the recession has slowed the rate of building at the development.

Cllr Fred Westmoreland said: “I agree with the aspirations, I agree with the desire to serve the community, I agree with the desire to get that school up there, but I also have to live in the real world and in the real world we have to deliver what is deliverable.”

Ron Champion from Laverstock and Ford Parish Council said: “The parish council is firmly against this proposal. This area is one of the worst in Wiltshire in terms of deprivation.

“Members asked for the school to be built at the beginning of the development and this was accepted. For this to go through is a sad reflection on the planning process and promises made to the people of Old Sarum.”