Mansfield’s Manor Academy could get a new sixth form building after the district council’s planning committee gave the green light to plans.
But the Secretary of State will have the final call, after governing body Sport England objected to the facility being built on an old basketball court.
The two-storey facility, which would feature two classrooms, two libraries, a number of meeting rooms and a cafe, had been in the planning stage for more than a year.
It comes after school leaders determined “issues” concerning student satisfaction with the existing facilities, after experiencing student “migration” to other sixth forms and colleges, documents say.
Bosses concluded that the Manor campus was “dull” and not as “teenager-friendly” as other schools.
The academy, on Park Hall Road in Mansfield Woodhouse, has long taken sixth form students, but with no purpose-built building for the 16-18 year-olds.
Plans were submitted in 2024 for the new facility on the old basketball courts at the very southern edge of the school.
Part of the proposal included the removal of the court.
The applicant said that the investment in the “modern learning environment” was needed to “improve the quality of the campus” and to retain students.
CGI images show how the new facility would look, with huge floor-to-ceiling windows letting in lots of light.
The exterior would be brick on the ground floor and would feature timber cladding on the upper floor.
The cafe area would resemble “globalised popular coffee shop brands like Costa or Starbucks to appeal to students by creating a different environment from the school; more like a high street cafe.”
At the Mansfield District Council planning committee meeting on Monday, October 27, members voted through the plans unanimously.
But they now have to go to the Secretary of State due to the Sport England objection.
They refused to support the application due to the prospective loss of the school’s basketball court.
The school said the court hasn’t been used for twenty years and is surplus to requirements due to the existence of the academy’s modern indoor sports centre, which meets sporting needs and is a “superior facility”.
But Sport England said they hadn’t seen sufficient evidence that the court was surplus.
One member of the public also objected due to concerns about construction traffic on the nearby Park Hall Road and a lack of privacy, with pupils on the top floor of the building potentially able to see into houses across Park Hall Road.
But a construction management plan will ensure that construction minimises impact on local residents, with an access lane for construction vehicles proposed to miss Park Hall Road, and on the side of the sixth form building facing the road, there will be far fewer windows, if any.
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