Green Light hoped for by Derbyshire School

A brand new multi-million-pound building has been planned for a Derby secondary school.

Larger numbers of children attending Chellaston Academy combined with an increase in housebuilding in the area means the school requires additional space.

To cope, the Swarkestone Road school wants to build a two-storey multi-use hall for assemblies, teaching, training and performances.

The hall would cost some £4.1 million.

The school currently has a capacity of 1,325 places for year groups seven to 11 and admits 265 new pupils each year. With the sixth form included, the total number of pupils is around 1,670.

If a planning application for the new hall gets the go-ahead, then the admission number for year seven would rise to 300 pupils.

The design and access statement submitted to the city council reveals that the new building will also have additional classrooms to support increasing pupil numbers. It will also have a hard standing area immediately outside for PE and to accommodate pupils during break times.

The statement also highlights the need to re-locate existing sports pitches to an area south of the main school, which is currently covered in woodland.  A tree survey has been carried out to identify the state of the existing trees and decide which can be removed.

Consultations have taken place with local residents and the hard standing area was included as a result  “in order to reduce the impact on the adjacent residential houses”, according to the statement.

The school serves homes which lie in both Derby City Council and Derbyshire County Council administrative areas and so the burden of ensuring there are sufficient spaces at the school lies with both local authorities.

Funding of £1,854,000 has been given by the city council for the new building and another £2,216,000 is coming from the county council.

The money will come from section 106 funding agreed with housing developers to improve communities where planning permission for homes has been granted.

A total of 897 new homes have received planning permission in the school’s catchment area, which are expected to generate 139 pupils aged 11 to 16.

The housing developments are at Chellaston Fields, Kings Newton, Holmleigh Way, Woodgate Drive, Aston and Woodlands Farm.

The city council says the school will eventually be able to have a further revised admission number of between 308 and 342.

Chellaston head Kevin Gaiderman said: “Our new facility will provide internal sporting capacity and additional classrooms and meeting rooms. The venue will also provide us with an area to enable us to hold large assemblies and events indoors including bespoke presentation evenings for the academy.”

If the project is given the green light then the building could be in use by September 2020.

Source: Derbyshire Live