Green light given for hundreds of new students at Melton secondary school
Hundreds of new students will be attending a Melton Mowbray secondary school after expansion plans were approved.
Long Field Spencer Academy, in Ambleside Way, currently has space for 900 pupils aged 11 to 16, but is over-subscribed with 930 on its register, planning documents reveal.
A ‘significant increase’ in house building in the Melton area, as well as expected future residential developments, now require the school to expand.
And plans for a new two-storey teaching block on one of its playing fields have now been approved by Leicestershire County Council’s planning team.
The scheme will increase capacity in the school by 300 pupils to 1,200.
The block will be located next to the existing school building.
It will contain 10 general use classrooms, four science labs, music rooms, art and design rooms, a food tech space, dining areas and an assembly hall.
Additional parking spaces are also to be created through the works, increasing provision from 85 to 117.
New sports pitches will replace the grass area that will be lost to the new building.
Approving the plans, planning officers said: “It will ensure that the school can continue to accept local children for schooling in the area as areas of local housing increase.”
Construction work is expected to start in November, planning documents state, and will take around six months to complete.
Long Field is one of two secondary schools serving the town and surrounding villages, with John Ferneley College the other one.
The expansion of Long Field will help address some of the concerns of local people that Melton Mowbray lacks the infrastructure to support the thousands of new homes being built in the town around the new partial bypass route.