The future of a south Bucks school has been plunged into doubt after the number of pupils applying to the school dropped.

Burnham Park E-ACT Academy has launched a consultation to close the school and transfer its Year 7-10 pupils to nearby Bourne End Academy, saying since the 2012-13 academic year, the academy has seen a 63 per cent fall in pupil numbers – going from 633 to 235.

The school says there are only 29 pupils in Year 7 – the total capacity for the year group is 160, making it just 18 per cent full and plunging the school into “significant financial difficulty”.

Spokesman Humayon Pramanik said: “In an environment when education funding is already challenging, having a school with such a small number of pupils makes it very difficult to run.

“In this climate, the academy has struggled to deliver significant educational improvement and has been judged to require special measures by Ofsted.

“This decision has not been taken lightly but comes as a direct result of a significant fall in the number of pupils at the academy over a period of time.

“It is also the right time to consider how the academy site could be redeveloped into an exciting alternative for the young people of south Buckinghamshire.”

But Bourne End residents are worried the influx of pupils at Bourne End Academy will “make traffic worse” in the area.

Jacqui Lewis, who lives in New Road, said: “The traffic here is bad enough, now it’s going to be worse.

“It’s already quite congested where I live. People use our driveway to do U-turns and even park in when they do school pick-ups and drop-offs. I’m in a wheelchair and I often struggle to get around all the parked cars on the pavement, so I have to go out into the road. I worry as I am blind in one eye.

“It just doesn’t sit well with me that were could be 200 or so extra pupils at the school. It going to be a nightmare – it’s already a nightmare.”

Mr Pramanik said Burnham Park would provide pupils free daily transportation to travel to and from Bourne End, adding that the school wanted to hear people’s views on the proposed closure.

He said: “No decision has been made yet. The final decision on the closure will be made by the regional schools commissioner and the secretary of state.

“We need to know what people’s views are – we want people to tell us what they think.”

If the academy is closed, Mr Pramanik says they will propose for the site to stay open for current Year 11 pupils until September this year so they can continue working towards their GCSEs.

Have your say at burnhamparkacademy.e-act.org.uk/consult before March 29.