Concerns about plans to build temporary classrooms on sports pitch at Wootton Hall in Northampton

Northampton Borough Council planning committee members are due to discuss a proposal to build a number of ‘modular units’ on the Northamptonshire headquarters site to cater for pupils attending the new Wootton Park School.

The school is set to open in September this year with places for 60 reception pupils and 120 year seven school. Eventually, the ‘all-through’ school will provide 1,260 places for children aged from four to 19.

A document due to be discussed by the planning committee next Tuesday states the temporary classrooms on the sports pitch at Wootton Hall would be used until August 2019.

A spokesman for the school said in April there would be a “clear buffer” between the modular buildings and the construction site. All Northamptonshire Police staff are due to leave the site by September 2017.

The planning committee has been advised to offer no objections to the plans. However, East Hunsbury Parish council has raised concerns about the level of traffic coming in and out of the Mereway junction and the loss of the sports pitches.

The parish council response states: “The volume of traffic during school drop-off and pick-up times is likely to increase significantly, particularly as parents dropping off for Abbeyfields School are now likely to use.

“Wootton Hall Park Road to drop off so that they can turn right at the roundabout, and not have to go the length of Mereway.”

The borough council’s arboricultural Officer also commented that the tree removal for the access to the site “is regrettable but necessary.”

The report states the sports pitch will be reinstalled once pupils move off out of the temporary classrooms into the permanent school building on the site.

The trust behind the Wootton Park School has previously said it hopes to have the temporary classrooms constructed by mid-July.