Leicester: New secondary school to be built on former allotment site

The new secondary school, which will accommodate 1,200 pupils, will be built in Garland Crescent next to Stokeswood Park

Plans to build a new city secondary school on a former allotment site have been approved by councillors.

The three-storey school, which will be built in Garland Crescent, Leicester, will accommodate 1,200 pupils and 128 members of staff.

There will also be a sports hall and outdoor sports facilities, including a "soft PE space with an amphitheatre".

The school will replace the temporary Brook Mead School, in St Augustine Road, in the city centre.

The plans, submitted on behalf of the Department for Education to Leicester City Council, also include an outdoor football pitch, six multi-purpose hard courts and a five-a-side pitch - which would be available to the public outside of school hours.

People would also be able to access the school, which will have a 115-space car park and space for 253 bikes, from Forest Way, through Stokeswood Park, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

The city council has warned a school of this size "has substantial potential to cause widespread disruption on several sections of road".

There will be drop-off and pick-up areas near the school. The authority said if these were on Groby Road and Fosse Road North the "impact could be disproportionately severe".

It said the government would be carrying out improvements to sections of Forest Way to bring it up to "a more acceptable condition" given the expected increase in users.

'Need for city schooling'

Planning documents state the site was previously used as allotments that became "surplus to requirements" and their use "ceased some years ago".

It was also once used as a claypit and later filled in with waste materials, resulting in contamination issues - which the city council said would take "significant and costly mediation work" for it to be turned into a public space.

Remediation plans to address contamination concerns have been submitted with the application.

It said the green space was now "unused land", which was not open to the public and had not been so for a "considerable period of time".

The authority added the city needed "at least three" new secondary or post-16 schools in the coming years, with this school being one.

However, council planning officers said the three schools would "only address shorter term need and further provision may be required later".

There were a handful of objections to the plans over parking and congestion and the loss of trees and natural space, however many agreed there was a need for additional secondary school places in the city.

The school, which would be run by The Mead Education Trust, will be funded through the government's Free School Programme.

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