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Residents want to make the cut through from Milverton Road, above, at the back of the school to Station Road, past the youth centre, an official footpath.
But a Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council investigation said that the route had not been used uninterrupted for 20 years, a test needed to make it an official footpath.
It said available evidence could also not show that the school intended to allow it to be used a right of way when it was open, another key test.
Councillors will be asked to back keeping the route closed to the public on Wednesday. Yet the matter could go to a public inquiry if objections are made to this.
It was closed for health and safety reasons when work began on a new sixth form in autumn 2008, a council report said.
Discussions between residents and the school “broke down” and a right of way application was submitted by a Milverton Road resident in January 2009, backed by 39 others.
It was due to be decided on by councillors in January 2010 but an officers’ report was withdrawn because of concern about some allegations in it and “due to the level of interest and strength of feeling that this matter had generated”.
It said a meeting between the school, council leader Ian Hedley and residents last month could not find a “suitable alternative solution”.
One resident produced a 2008 letter from the acting head teacher which referred to the route as a public footpath.
Yet the council report said she may have been ‘unaware as to the historic use and status of the claimed way’.
A Station Road resident said he was a council employee who drafted contract pre-ambles including a 1972 extension and he recalled that ‘no attempt was made to limit access to the route’.
But the council report said: “No further detail has been provided and given the lack of available contemporaneous documents it is difficult to determine the reasoning behind, impact or extent of the works at that time on the claimed way.
“Whilst this is considered as useful background information, no additional weight has been placed on this.”
It said no route could be found in official maps.
The school and council said ‘there has been some usage of the way historically’ but this was “predominantly outside of school hours and that where limited access was granted, it appears informally, by the school it was on the grounds of ‘good neighbourliness’”.
This was backed by evidence from staff and David Chamberlain, head from 1988 to 2002, the report said.
These said it was common for people to be challenged when on the site, though the report said evidence of this is ‘limited’.
The council’s planning committee will be asked to back the report at its meeting at the council’s town centre offices on Wednesday at 6pm.
Yet it says the issue could go to a public inquiry with an independent planning inspector if objections are made.
Both parties would pay legal costs. But the council said it would have to pay all costs if it found the council acted ‘unreasonably’ or if the plan is ‘fundamentally defective’.
The report said: “Any such costs are likely to be substantial and would need to be met from within the existing cash limited budget.”
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