Plans for a new build primary school are due to go before councillors for decision next week.

Sunderland City Council’s Planning and Highways Committee will discuss an application for a new home for Thorney Close Primary School.

The new school complex is planned on the former Sunningdale Primary School site in the Springwell area, with demolition plans for the site approved back in 2023 by development bosses.

A planning and design and access statement submitted to council officials last year stated the cleared site was earmarked to provide a “replacement school” for Thorney Close Primary School, which needs space for more pupils.

It was noted that Thorney Close Primary School would “remain operational” during the construction period and would relocate once the new school is built.

The design and access statement linked to the proposed new school said the design would retain the “existing site access, car parking facilities and partial external play areas”.

New facilities would also include a “new school building, new football pitch and associated new drainage and landscaping works”.

The applicant is listed as Together for Children, which provides services on behalf of Sunderland City Council, with the council also listed as an ‘agent’ for the school scheme.

The planning application is seeking permission for the “erection of [a] new primary school with nursery provision, new car parking, outdoor play facilities and associated landscaping”.

During a council consultation exercise on the plans two objections were received from neighbours, with concerns raised around additional footfall and cars, disruption during construction works and littering.

Sunderland City Council planning officers, in a report prepared ahead of a Planning and Highways Committee meeting next week, have recommended the school scheme for approval.

The council committee report notes the project would “utilise a former school site” and “deliver a good standard of development” in an “accessible and sustainable location”, as well as having an “acceptable impact on the amenity of the locality”.

It was also noted that Thorney Close Primary is “an older school
and, whilst well maintained, is lacking in the specialist teaching provision which the newer primary schools can offer”.

The new school would be developed with improved facilities ranging from specialist teaching rooms and rooms for teaching smaller groups, to rooms catering for special educational needs and hearing impairment needs and “appropriate staff facilities to broaden the existing curriculum”.

In terms of on-site parking, the new centrally located car park would provide 36 regular spaces for teaching staff and visitors, and four accessible bays for staff and visitors, along with 80 bike racks across the site to “promote more sustainable methods of transport”.

The council committee report adds: “As set out within the consultation response from Sport England, the rebuilding of the school on a more compact footprint has created the opportunity for the school to better utilise the open space, with the associated playing fields now having the capability to accommodate formal sport for the first time”.

According to planning documents submitted last year, the new school site would have a “capacity of 315 places plus nursery provision”, with “an additional 39 nursery places and 12 places for two- to three-year-old provision”.

Project bosses said the plans would help tackle parking issues with Thorney Close Primary School’s existing site, as well as “enabling the new school to be built within the catchment area of the existing school”.

It was also noted that the new build school had been “future-proofed” to enable it to grow to a two-form entry “if required”.

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The final decision on the school plan rests with councillors on the Planning and Highways Committee, who will next meet on Monday, June 10, 2024.

The meeting will start at 5.30pm at City Hall and will be open to the public.

For more information on the planning application, visit the council’s planning portal website and search reference: 23/02498/LP3