Walsall school set for committee nod
Twelve acres of former municipal golf course land will be repurposed to house the Windsor Apollo Academy secondary school and sixth form, should planning committee members sign off the proposals.
The recommendation of officers ahead of the meeting, on the evening of 3 September, is that authority should be delegated to the head of planning to approve, subject to necessary legal agreements.
However, local opposition has been fierce, with a welter of objecions lodged, along with a 2,000-strong petition.
The Department for Education is the applicant, with BAM lined up as contractor.
Define is advising on planning, with BAM Design as architect and Dally Henderson as landscape architect. LBH, SRL, and Middlemarch Environmental are also on the professional team.
The academy is expected to provide 750 secondary school places, 200 sixth form places and 24 Inclusion Base places to support students with special educational needs.
Windsor Academy Trust is described in planning documents as an experienced provider, operating 15 schools at present, including Goldsmith Primary Academy and River Primary Academy, both in Walsall.
According to the officer report ahead of committee, the site has been vacant since the closure of the golf course in 2007 and comprises a mix of open grassland and vegetation. Parts of the site also house infrastructure relating to the Birchills power station cooling towers that occupied the site before the golf course.
The site is bounded by the Walsall Canal to the north-east, residential development to the south and south-east, Reedswood Park to the west, and Reedswood Retail Park to the north – a small area between the proposed school site and the retail park is consented for a battery storage system.
Encouragement has come from consultees such as Education Walsall, which said: “From a school place planning perspective, the proposal would assist the Local Authority in managing projected demand for secondary school places and reduce pressure on existing schools within secondary planning area 3 and across the wider borough.”
On the other side of the ledger, Birmingham & Black Country Wildlife Trust is an objector, while concerns over highways and flooding have been raised by council officers.
In addition to that is public feeling: there have been more than 200 objections – including group objections from Save our Park, and Keep Reedswood Green – while a petition has garnered more than 2,000 signatures opposed to the proposals. Various issues are cited, including questioning the need for additional school places, and the possibility of exploring other sites first.
Documents relating to the project can be seen on Walsall Council’s planning portal, reference 26/0700.
