The final plans for a new school building project as a consultation launches today.
A planning application to build a new Special Educational Needs and Disabilities(SEND) school in the disused former Durrants School playing field, next to Little Green Junior School in Croxley Green, is being considered by Hertfordshire County Council.
If it goes ahead, Breakspeare School, in Abbots Langley, would relocate to the new site and see a massive boost in numbers.
In 2022, when the move was given the green light from the council, Breakspeare School offered 97 places while the new school would be for 210 pupils.
- Plans for new school site build submitted
- New Breakspeare School site consultation launched
- School to increase places by 50% ahead of permanent move
Early glimpses of the design showed that some elements, including how the site would be accessed, were still being finalised at the end of last year.
After formal public consultation for the planning application began this morning (March 5) planning documents detailing the final designs were made available.
These reveal that the school would be accessed via Manor Way, to the south of the site.
The new documents add that the proposed school would have 137 staff (full-time equivalent) and a wide catchment area - since all the students have an education, health and care plan (EHCP).
The school site would contain 145 parking spaces, 18 disabled parking spaces, and six school mini-bus parking spaces so that all drop-off and pick-up could be done within the site boundary.
As proposed at the pre-application stage, the school building would be arranged as one large structure in a box shape around a courtyard divided into two by a triangular central area with extra rooms.
Durrants School’s former playing field is within the green belt and because of this the design of the building is described as “hunkered into the landscape”.
Only the proposed main hall and hydrotherapy pool are two-storey, and these are clad in timber “to soften the building’s appearance”.
The neighbouring Little Green Junior School would lose a small part of its playing field when the access to the new school is created and to compensate for this a new multi-use games area for Little Green’s sole use has been added on to the proposal.
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