10:00AM, Thursday 26 February 2026
Councillors have decided to withdraw from a Government programme to build a special free school in Windsor after learning the project would be ‘significantly delayed’ until the mid-2030s.
In 2023, the Royal Borough was successful in its bid to take part in the Department for Education’s (DfE) programme for a wave of new special free schools across the country.
The special educational needs school for children aged seven to 16 was planned on a site in a new housing development to the west of Windsor, between the A308 and Dedworth Road.
The Chiltern Way Academy Trust (CWAT) was provisionally chosen to run the 100-place school in 2024. It would have provided specialist provision for children with social, emotional and mental health needs (SEMH).
But at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday (February 24), Councillor Amy Tisi, the cabinet member for children’s services and education, said that since then progress had been ‘extremely slow’.
In December last year, council officers were told almost all of the special schools planned were being cancelled or ‘significantly delayed’, she said.
The school proposed for Windsor was ‘unlikely’ to be ready until the mid-2030s, according to a report which was presented to councillors.
Cllr Tisi (Lib Dem, Clewer East) told the meeting at York House: “The can was being kicked down the road and [the plans] kept being delayed, kept being delayed.”
Cabinet members were given the option of withdrawing from the programme, and instead receive an additional £5.4million of High Needs capital funding from the DfE, on top of what it already receives, to invest in specialist provision over the next three financial years.
Cllr Tisi said: “Personally, I would rather [the council] be the master of our own destiny and be able to take the money now and make a difference now, rather than waiting on the possible promise of maybe having a school in the 2030s.”
Cabinet members thus agreed to withdraw from the special school programme.
Cllr Lynne Jones (Ind, Old Windsor) said: “Ten years down the line we just can’t be certain of anything, and we have a need in the borough, and we need to address that need, sooner rather than later.”
But Cllr Carole Da Costa (Ind, Clewer and Dedworth West) addressed the cabinet and asked for reassurance that children will not be ‘negatively affected’ by this decision.
The aim is to use the funding from the DfE to provide 100 specialist places, which would replace what the school would have offered, Cllr Tisi said.
Cllr Richard Coe (Lib Dem, Riverside) said the Government’s decision is ‘extremely disappointing’.
“I am really disappointed by what the Government have done here,” he said.
“There has never been a greater need for SEMH SEND provision.
“We’ve been promised this since 2023. The Tories have kicked the can down the road a year at a time for three years, and now Labour sort of kicked it into outer space.”
Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Wisdom Da Costa (Ind, Clewer and Dedworth West) agreed that the loss of the special school was a ‘huge disappointment’.
He asked what would happen to the site where the school was planned.
The next steps regarding the land will be considered at a cabinet meeting in April, according to the report.
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