FALLING rolls could mean the scrapping of two secondary schools in Darlington in the next 15 years.

A bid for Government cash to build new schools is being submitted by the borough council next week and head teachers have already decided that schools should ideally be a minimum size of 900 pupils.

A report to Monday's meeting of the Lifelong Learning Scrutiny Committee says that secondary school rolls are currently at their highest levels but there will be gradual decline from January and a surplus of around 1,433 places for 11-16-year olds by 2014.

But Geoff Pennington, director of education, says that it would be prudent to retain a minimum of 5pc additional capacity to allow for parental preferences or "blips" in numbers. And, on that basis, the long- term need for places would be 5,460 against a capacity of 6,633 - an 18pc surplus.

While the available data indicated that Darlington would not have above 10pc surplus places until 2009, that masked an uneven distribution of take-up because of the relative unpopularity of a number of schools.

The re-development of Haughton School made it essential to maintain it at the 900 pupil capacity and that would inevitably have an impact on other schools.

Carmel RC Voluntary Aided School currently took about 22pc of non-Catholics but more were likely to be admitted from other schools as its own numbers fell.

Popular and successful schools would continue to be full at the expense of other schools, some of which were projected to decline below 600 pupils by 2014 - creating problems for delivery of the curriculum because of staff retention and recruitment difficulties.

Closer collaboration between secondary and primary schools was necessary and could be fostered by establishing "collaboratives" of a secondary school with feeder primaries, possibly managed on a federated basis.

Teachers agreed that all schools should be rebuilt as opposed to being refurbished and - where a new school was to be created by combining two schools - resited if possible.

Mr Pennington, said that the condition of secondary school buildings in Darlington fell well short of a standard appropriate for this day and age.

"The Government is offering an opportunity for local authorities to bid for funds in order to rebuild their schools.

"The timescale for us to submit bids is very tight, but delay will mean that we could miss out on opportunities for funding.

"Any successful bid must take into account the falling population of an area and its effect on school rolls. In Darlington, this could mean two fewer secondary schools could be required within the borough.