Newcastle Great Park school opening could be delayed to 2022

Planning permission for the scheme was granted last month, but it could now face delays

The opening of a school on a Tyneside housing development could be pushed back until 2022, it has been revealed.

Broadway East First School had been due to move from its current home in Gosforth to a bigger site at Newcastle Great Park by next September.

However, there have been delays to the next phase of building and wildlife campaigners are weighing up a legal challenge to the next 1,200 homes.

Newcastle City Council said it was "keen to see progress".

The local authority announced last month it had finally granted planning permission for the properties to be built along with the first school catering for 450 pupils and a middle/secondary school for up to 1,700.

'Real blow'

The project was first considered by its planning committee in January 2017 and then again in December 2018.

However, campaigners from Save Newcastle Wildlife are attempting to raise funds for a new legal challenge.

Council documents show the delays mean its acquisition of the first school site could be put back until October 2021 "to allow time for the Judicial Review period to have lapsed or a potential legal challenge to be addressed as well as the legal process for the transfer of the land".

That would lead to a revised opening date of September 2022, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Anita Lower, Great Park councillor and Newcastle City Council's Liberal Democrat opposition leader, said it was a "real blow" for parents, while mother-of-two Holly Barkess said school provision should not have been tied to the delivery of more than 1,000 homes.

Deputy leader of the Labour-controlled council, Joyce McCarty, said: "We are keen to see progress like everyone else.

"However, schemes as big as this which involve multiple partners are very often subject to delays, through no fault of the council."