Shropshire’s schools are losing £15 million over 10 years in Government funding because of falling pupil numbers, a top Shirehall official has claimed.

David Taylor, Shropshire Council’s director of people’s services, also said some secondary schools in the county were operating at “six figure deficits”.

He said the authority was being forced to act in a bid to maintain standards of education across Shropshire.

Mr Taylor made the comments last night at Hopton Wafers Village Hall, near Cleobury Mortimer, where he chaired a meeting attended by about 40 residents to discuss plans to close the village’s primary school.

He said the county was catering for 3,000 fewer pupils in 2010 than at the turn of the millennium, and as a result would miss out on £15 million in Government funding between 2005 and 2015. “That is between 10 and 15 per cent of our entire budget for education,” he said.

The claims will provoke anger from campaigners fighting school closures.

Leading Shropshire Council member, Peter Phillips, and other campaigners, claim that officers frequently refer to “falling” pupil numbers when in fact figures are bottoming out.