Nottingham City Council is progressing plans to expand specialist education provision for children with complex needs by repurposing the long-unused Waterside Primary School site as part of a major expansion of Rosehill Special School.
A delegated decision signed off in December confirms that up to £565,000 of capital funding will be allocated to carry out detailed surveys, design work and professional fees for the proposed expansion, marking a significant step forward in addressing Nottingham’s growing demand for specialist school places for children with special educational needs and disabilities.
The funding will be drawn from the council’s High Needs Capital Fund and will be used to progress feasibility and design work ahead of a formal public consultation and a future decision by the council’s Executive Board, expected in summer 2026.
The proposal centres on Rosehill Special School, a maintained special school which supports pupils with Autism Spectrum Condition. Nottingham City Council’s SEND Sufficiency Strategy for 2023–2028 identified a need for at least 110 additional specialist school places across the city, with 90 of those places planned to be delivered through the expansion of Rosehill alone. The Waterside Primary School building, located in the Dales ward, was originally constructed by the Department for Education with the intention that it would open as a mainstream academy. However, applications for pupil admissions were extremely low and the school never opened as planned. Since then, the modern building has remained unoccupied.
The Department for Education has now agreed to lease the site to Nottingham City Council so it can be used to support Rosehill Special School’s expansion. While the lease itself will be subject to a separate council decision, the current approval allows officers to progress the technical groundwork needed to understand how the building can be adapted for specialist use.
Council officers argue that bringing the empty site into use will have wider benefits for the surrounding area. An unoccupied school building can attract vandalism and anti-social behaviour, and the council states that reactivating the site will help reduce these risks while providing a long-term community asset.
As part of the decision, authority has been delegated to senior officers to appoint design teams and contractors through national SCAPE frameworks, including Perfect Circle for professional services and Morgan Sindall for construction. These frameworks are commonly used by local authorities and are intended to provide cost certainty, compliance with procurement rules and faster delivery.
An initial feasibility study has already been carried out, but the newly approved funding will allow more detailed surveys and designs to be completed. This work is expected to clarify the full cost of the expansion, the delivery timetable, and how many pupils the adapted site can ultimately accommodate.
The council has indicated that around £6 million is provisionally earmarked for delivery of the project once the design stage is complete, although final costs will be confirmed only after the detailed work has been concluded. The council’s remaining High Needs capital balance is reported to be sufficient to support the scheme at this stage.
Importantly, the decision also confirms that a formal consultation will take place once the scoping and design work has been completed. Because the expansion represents a significant change to Rosehill Special School, the consultation will be carried out in line with statutory requirements, allowing parents, carers, staff, local residents and other stakeholders to comment before any final decision is taken.
Ward councillors for Dales were consulted as part of the delegated decision process and raised no objections.
For families of children with Autism Spectrum Condition, the proposal represents a potential expansion of high-quality local provision, reducing the need for long journeys or placements outside the city. For residents living near the Waterside site, the plans signal a transition from an unused building to an operational school, with the associated increase in daily activity but also greater security and long-term use.
The council has previously considered alternative locations, including the former Glenbrook Management Centre site, but this option was rejected. Officers concluded that the Waterside Primary site is more suitable, would deliver a greater number of specialist places, and would do so at lower overall cost.
Council officers have also highlighted the financial risks of delaying new SEND provision. Failure to expand maintained specialist school places could push the council’s high needs budget further into deficit, increasing reliance on expensive external placements and undermining efforts to improve outcomes for children and young people with additional needs.
At this stage, the decision does not approve construction or guarantee the expansion will go ahead in its current form. Instead, it represents a preparatory step, enabling the council to develop detailed proposals that can be tested through consultation and formal political decision-making in 2026.
If approved at a later stage, the expansion would play a central role in reshaping Nottingham’s specialist education landscape over the next decade, making use of a previously unused school building while responding to a long-standing and growing demand for SEND places across the city.
