Newcastle Great Park secondary school opening pushed back

The Great Park development sits to the north of Newcastle

The opening of a secondary school on a Tyneside housing development has been pushed back by another year.

Great Park Academy, on the Newcastle Great Park Estate, will not be ready until 2023, the city council said.

It was originally due to open last month before being pushed back to 2022 because of delays in obtaining planning permission for the next phase of the estate.

The council said work on schools across the city had been hit by Covid-19.

While work continues at Great Park, pupils will be taught from next September in a temporary council-funded building at Gosforth Academy, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

It was constructed to tackle a shortage of school places in the city.

Paula Holland, the council's cabinet member for education and skills, said the interim accommodation had been completed "in very difficult circumstances" amid the pandemic.

Broadway East First School, in Gosforth, is also due to relocate to the Great Park Estate and building work is expected to start early next year and be completed in 2022, the council said.

It had also initially been due to open last month but that plan was dropped in late 2019.

Plans to build both a first school and a large secondary school on the estate were proposed in 2016.

However, they came as part of bigger designs for another 1,200 homes at the site which were challenged at the High Court by environmental campaigners.

Save Newcastle Wildlife claimed the housing development would threaten protected species in and around the nearby Havannah Nature Reserve, but its call for a judicial review was rejected.