A CONTROVERSIAL consultation over changes to Leigh school admissions includes two detailed plans – set to either shake-up or scrap catchment areas.

Southend Council has launched its preliminary consultation on two proposals, both designed to lessen the load on already oversubscribed schools.

Plan A involves moving parts of the catchment areas of popular schools to undersubscribed schools.

Under this plan, homes to the south of Western Road, Leigh would change from West Leigh School to Leigh North Street Primary School and part of that school’s catchment would move to Darlinghurst.

Plan B would see the removal of catchment areas altogether.

The catchment areas for West Leigh Schools, Leigh North Street Primary School, Chalkwell Hall Schools and Darlinghurst School catchments would be replaced with a shared priority area.

Schools within this combined catchment area would use oversubscription criteria that would give priority to those living within a certain circumference of the school.

Schools would use a “virtual pinpoint” instead of the school building for measuring distance from the school to a child’s home.

This is largely considered the fairer option as some schools, such as West Leigh, are not in the middle of their catchment areas, a disadvantage to some families living on the catchment borders.

The distance measurement point would be moved from the school to a more central location to ensure that all residencies would be within a 0.6 mile radius of the nearest Virtual School Point.

All siblings will be given priority admission to their catchment schools.

Antonia Marshall has a child going to Leigh North Street in September.

Mrs Marshall of Station Road, Leigh, said plan B was proving popular with parents.

She said: “Taking away catchment areas is something they do in a lot of London schools. A lot of people I have spoken to at West Leigh and North Street seem to be in favour of plan B. It is the simplest and fairest solution for all.

“Rather than just moving roads out of West Leith catchment to resolve a problem at that school, this looks at the bigger picture.”

If the council does nothing, by September 2019 63 children would be unable to get a place across the area – Chalkwell Hall schools, 37, Leigh North Street, 19 and seven in West Leigh schools – despite living in that catchment area.

This “listening and engagement” phase will take place over the summer with a formal public consultation on one option in October before starting in September 2019. To take part in the consultation, go to southend.gov.uk/schoolcatchmentresponse