DfE proposes Bolton modular school
The Department for Education has lodged an application with Bolton Council to build a 900-pupil secondary school on 16 acres of Green Belt land south of Freshfield Avenue.
The 46,000 sq ft school, designed by architecture practice DLA Design, would provide a new home for Kings Leadership Academy and allow the school to increase its capacity to 900 students from 540.
Kings Leadership Academy, operated by The Great School Trust, which has schools in Liverpool and Warrington, was established in 2019 and currently occupies temporary accommodation on the site of the former Hayward Grammar School off Lever Edge Lane, where it will remain until 2022.
Modular construction specialist Elliott Group OSS, headquartered in Peterborough, aims to hand over the completed two-storey school in time for the 2022/2023 academic year, subject to planning approval.
The school would comprise 156 individual modules, built at Elliott’s factory in West Yorkshire from March next year.
The modules would be delivered to site between December 2021 and February 2022.
There is a “clear need for additional secondary school places to serve South Bolton”, according to a planning statement from consultancy DPP UK.
The plans also feature provision for a pair of sports pitches and a 70-space car park.
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Why on earth do they need to build this on Green Belt, when there’s more than enough land to rebuild where they are? That is simply lazy design, with no consideration for the impact on the neighbourhood.
By Anon
What a depressing brown dump of a building. Is that what passes for inspiring at the DfE. It is so, so awful. Kids should not have to go near such depressing sites.
By Richard
I’ve looked on Google maps and Street view and this is greenbelt. There is plenty of brownfield sites around the northwest, build on them first.
By Darren born bred
Communist Russia would be proud of this!
By Lennin