Nottinghamshire County Council’s Policy Committee meeting today voted unanimously to move to the next stage of the proposals.
The three points that were debated and voted on are the relocation of Lady Bay Primary School, a brand new secondary school and extension facilities for Rushcliffe School.
Councillor Jonathan Wheeler (CONS), Nottinghamshire County Councillor for West Bridgford South:
‘I am delighted that the County Council is investing £480,000 in Rushcliffe School to enable a planning application to expand the school.
“I have been working with the school and the County for a long time to ensure we can replace the old leisure centre with a new school building, to meet demand for school places. This will not only benefit my residents, but the entire catchment including Ruddington.
“I also welcome the progression of the new Secondary School in West Bridgford, on Regatta Way with the relocated Lady Bay primary school alongside West Bridgford Colts and Gedling and Sherwood Cricket Club.’
“Not only does this meet demand for school places, but is a great opportunity for children to have Skylarks nature reserve next to them, and a fantastic football club on the other.
“I know there are concerns on taking green open spaces, which I would prefer we did not as well.
“However, we don’t have any brown field sites in that area which could take the new schools so there is not a option. I also welcome the fact that Councillors from all parties on the Policy Committee supported the scheme, so this can’t be used as a political football ahead of the election.”
More information
Following due consideration against all the criteria it was concluded that the Council owned land off Regatta Way in West Bridgford provides the most suitable option for a number of reasons as summarised below
• Close proximity to Lady Bay community and accessible on foot, cycle and public transport routes for current and future pupils;
• The Tollerton Lane site would only be capable of taking Secondary School pupils for the area and so unable to achieve the benefits outlined in this report of building and operating both schools as a campus;
• Significant infrastructure required to enable the crossing of the A52 by pupils from the Lady Bay, Gamston and West Bridgford areas which is not at present adequately provided for and is still at an early stage of planning in terms of the wider development at Tollerton and Gamston;
• Sufficient size to house both of the schools in a campus style development; and,
• The land is already within the Council’s ownership and development could be progressed for provision in the timescale necessary to meet the pressure on school places.
The councils says the existing Lady Bay primary school is unsuitable to meet future education requirements.
The age and moreover the Listed status of one of the main buildings is proving to be highly restrictive to the required expansion of the school.
Indeed the school has outgrown its existing accommodation some years ago and consequently, portable buildings have been utilised for many years.
More recently, the Council has experienced obstacles at a planning level in the attempted replacement of these portable buildings and a refurbishment of these has needed to suffice.
Beyond this, the accommodation of the heritage building is restrictive to the needs of modern-day education with an inherent inflexibility to deliver modern education teaching methods such as the provision of group and intervention spaces.
The significant separation of the school and its playing field facilities is a further negative aspect to the existing arrangements.
Due to the small footprint of the current site, the listed building and planning constraints makes a replacement school on the existing site almost impossible. It is therefore apparent that the requirement for a replacement Lady Bay primary school within proximity to the current site is becoming an increasingly important issue.
Following the analysis of sites for a replacement primary school and new Secondary School in West Bridgford, the land at Regatta Way has clear advantages over and above all other potential sites in the vicinity for this requirement.
The Council has investigated and explored all other options and is satisfied that this scenario presents the best solution available and it is recommended that further work is now undertaken to progress a planning application for the preferred site.
Due to there being some outstanding survey and design work to complete and the need to engage with all stakeholders and existing tenants, it is recommended that a future report be brought back to Committee outlining progress to date and seeking further funding for the next design stages.
The proposals highlighted within this report will require a further £980,000 of funding to enable further design work. This figure is made up of £500,000 of funds required to enable the new Secondary School, West Bridgford and Ladybay Primary School to be developed and £480,000 will be required for detailed designs to be developed for the Rushcliffe School to enable a planning application to be submitted to the Council (subject to agreement in respect of the final design). All of the funding identified will be allocated from the Nottinghamshire basic need allocation.
READ: Lady Bay School move: The Leader of Nottinghamshire County Council comments ahead of meeting
