PLANS have been submitted for
a three-storey teaching block on a playground at Arden
Click the headline or link below to read the rest of this story.
The school is seeking
Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council permission for the extension to the
school, to demolish an existing store.
The development – with 13 classrooms
and six studios for the school and sixth form – is needed to take increasing pupil numbers
from next September, the school said.
Figures provided by Arden
But the sixth form will go
from 279 to 318 to 375 over those three dates.
The planning applicationsays: “The hard standing is an underutilised space and is seldom used as a play
area by pupils.
“It is occasionally parked on
by a small number of staff for the convenience it offers. This reduces the walk
to the allocated parking spaces adjacent to the sports hall, regularly leaving
it half empty.”
It adds: “It is set well back
from Station
Road Arden Academy
The development would cut the
number of rooms in use from 100 per cent to 85 per cent, meaning it could take
out “unsuitable” rooms in the humanities block.
It says: “The very high
utilisation of existing accommodation obliges all curriculum areas to maintain full
class group sizes and severely limits curriculum flexibility.”
Parking will be reconfigured so spaces remain at 148.
Some 64 people attended two
consultation sessions at the school in September and included messages of
support including the “important benefits this will bring to the school and the
teaching environment”.
Yet there were also concern
about the impact on house prices – which cannot be used as a reason by the
council to reject the plan – and extra
traffic from more pupils.
It is likely the application
will be decided by the council’s planning committee at a date to be fixed.
View the application and
leave comments by clicking here and entering 2013 and 1719 in the two boxes.
Click here to get stories by email.
