The next step in the process of closing a special school is due to be taken in the coming week.

Brighton and Hove City Council started a consultation on the future of Homewood College, in Queensdown School Road, Brighton, two months ago – and now wants to close it.

The council has already stopped sending children to the school which was rated inadequate and placed in special measures by the official education watchdog Ofsted.

And at the end of the 2023-24 financial year, at the end of March, the school had a £709,000 deficit.

The council’s cabinet member for finance, Jacob Taylor, is being asked to make a decision about the next steps which are likely to end with the closure of the school.

During the consultation process, the council held two public engagement events and received 19 responses. Three responders supported closing the school, six were unsure and ten – or 53 per cent – did not want Homewood to close.

Five people went to an in-person public meeting – and no one attended the online meeting.

The report said: “Following the public consultation, the cabinet member for finance and city regeneration could determine not to proceed with the statutory notice to close Homewood College.

“At this time, the school has no pupils on its roll nor staff employed to work there.

“As a result, it would be some time before the provision could be restarted through the commissioning of places and the naming of the provision in young people’s ‘education, health and care plans’.

“The number of responses to the consultation were low and, while a small majority disagreed with the proposals, consideration needs to be made about the practicalities of not taking forward the next stage of the consultation process, namely publication of statutory notices.”

Before the closure process started, the school took 40 to 50 pupils a year, with social, emotional and mental health needs.

The remaining year 10 and 11 pupils were assigned places elsewhere, including St George’s House, in Dyke Road, Brighton, and Ropemaker’s Academy, run by the Beckmead Trust, in Hailsham.

Most of the 10 to 14-year-old pupils switched to the pupil referral unit at Connaught Road, Hove.

If Councillor Taylor agrees that a four-week representation period should follow – from Monday 7 October to Monday 4 November – it will give people a final chance to comment on the proposal.

Homewood is a special school for pupils from 11 to 16 with social, emotional and mental health needs.

The school became subject to an “academy order” after it as placed in special measures in December 2021 but no trust has come forward to sponsor the school.

If the school is closed, a separate application would need to be made to the Education Secretary should the council wish to dispose of the school land and buildings.