Your DH may be correct and they may be trying to actively discourage people from applying there. DDs school had its largest prep enrolment with her year and then another big year after that so the had over 100 children entering each year but only 60 going out so it does not take long for a school to grow quickly. Apparently Dept education does not like to put a ceiling on numbers or "zone" primary schools so schools have deal with the issue themselves.
DDs school started to not do the regular advertising of tours and telling parents who were coming a long distance to consider their closest school.
The year that we looked for schools for DD we only went to one school tour and luckily it was great!