Holland Park School - a bright new future
Holland Park School is the borough’s only community secondary school. Built in the 1950s, the school building has reached the end of its useful life and the Council is moving forward with plans to replace it with a brand new building. The new school will have full disabled access and will provide first class facilities for students, staff and the wider community.
Planning permission was granted in October 2008 and work is now underway to turn the plans into reality. It will make a welcome addition to the borough’s impressive record on providing education for all and will help build upon the success of the school over recent years.
The new school
The school currently operates on two sites separated by a public walkway to Holland Park. The new school will occupy a smaller site, which will reduce travelling time across the school and improve the supervision of students. The southern part of the site will be sold for residential development, while associated affordable housing and a new children’s centre will be provided off site.
The new layout of the site means that, in spite of the sale of part of the land, the amount of play space for students will increase in size, quality and accessibility.
This is a complex project. For two years the school will be in temporary accommodation made up of part of the existing school complemented by high quality temporary buildings. The remainder of the existing school will be demolished to create the site for the new school.
The next steps
Planning permission has been obtained for the new school, the temporary accommodation and the residential development. Work is progressing on meeting the planning conditions approved by the Council’s Major Planning Development Committee.
Shepherd Construction has been appointed as first stage contractors and is working with the design team to put the key packages for the new school out to tender. Shepherd is a national contractor with experience of major school building projects.
Before construction can begin the Council still has to make sure that the project can be properly financed. Detailed work is underway to confirm the costs of the new school and to assess the value of the southern part of the existing site. The marketing exercise for the sale of the southern site will begin this summer.
The Cabinet will make a decision on whether to proceed once it has received the results of the tendering exercise. It can then consider the new school’s costs alongside the outcome of the marketing exercise for sale of the southern site. It is expected that the Cabinet will be in a position to make a decision in October 2009.
The intention is to fully fund the new school and associated affordable housing and children’s centre from the money raised by the sale of the southern site.
Any surplus remaining after these costs have been paid will be placed in a ring-fenced fund to be used solely for education, sports and leisure facilities for the local community. An advisory trust will be set up to help the Council decide how any surplus funds should be spent.
A community school
The new school will have excellent facilities which the Council wants the wider community to use outside normal school hours. As well as high quality sports pitches and gyms, the school will have a 25-metre swimming pool. It will also have state-of-the-art science laboratories, dance and music facilities and rooms suitable for meetings. A community use plan will be developed and consulted on.
Timescale
If a decision to proceed is made in October, work will start shortly afterwards on the temporary accommodation. The school will be in temporary accommodation from September 2010 to August 2012 while the new school is built.
The new school is due to open in September 2012, with the external play facilities being completed by Easter 2013.
A developer will then be able to start building the residential development on the southern site.
The new facilities
- an all-weather, floodlit sports pitch
- a floodlit multi-use games area
- two tennis courts
- an indoor sports hall (four badminton courts size)
- a multi-gym
- a 25-metre swimming pool
- modern changing facilities
- high specification studios for dance, drama and music
- general classrooms meeting government size requirements
- specialist classrooms with high quality facilities for science and technology
- high quality curriculum and IT facilities
- flexible accommodation for modern teaching and learning
- underground car parking
- full access for people with disabilities.
What do you think?
Email your comments on this story to: rbkcdirect@rbkc.gov.uk
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