By John Baron
£9 million plans for a new sixth form college in Pudsey have been logged with Leeds City Council this week.
Located on a former rugby pitch at Crawshaw Academy, Pudsey Sixth Form College would cater for up to 600 students, benefiting from specialist teachers who would offer up to 26 different subjects.
Both A level and BTech courses would be on offer with subjects ranging from art, business, media, philosophy and physical education to English, maths, computer science, law and French.
The two-storey building would be accessed from Kent Road.
Plans include 20 student and visitor car parking spaces, including two car-sharing spaces, two accessible spaces and four electric charging vehicle spaces. There would also be two motorbike spaces and a further 10 bays for drop off/pick up only. Staff car parking spaces would be accessed via Crawshaw Academy.
The plans have been brought forward by Luminate Education Group and developed in partnership with Leeds Sixth Form College and schools including Crawshaw Academy, Co-op Academy Priesthorpe and Leeds West Academy in Rodley.
They say the new college will open pathways to careers which may have otherwise been difficult to access, meet growing demand for education provision at this level and ensure that local young people can access the highest standards of education in their local area.
WLD reported in October that Councillors Dawn and Simon Seary and Trish Smith (Cons, Pudsey) welcomed the principle of the scheme, but expressed concerns about traffic congestion on Kent Road and the impact of extra traffic on nearby residents.
The developers say the college ‘is not likely to have a significant impact on the local highway network’, with revised proposals including 68 cycle spaces and a range of pedestrian routes and bus services accessible to students.
“The residual cumulative impact of the development on the transport network cannot be considered to be ‘severe’,” developers argued in a report accompanying the application.
The proposals were first revealed by WLD in July 2021. There were some local concerns about access, road safety issues on busy Kent Road, the impact on neighbouring homes and how it would affect existing sixth form provision at local schools.
The land was originally used as a rugby pitch by Crawshaw Academy, then as recreational space in 2007 and 2008. It is understood to have been unused for the past 19 years.
Courses are due to start in summer 2023 at Park Lane College in Leeds city centre, with courses scheduled to move to Pudsey in 2024.
The plans can be viewed in full – and commented upon – here.
Those arguing that the college will have little impact on traffic levels should go and look at the college built next to the Police Station on Nelson Street in Bradford. Its absolute chaos there at start and finish times every day.
I think it’s wrong that the six form school should be just off Kent Road nobody seems to have looked at the infrastructure in the area, far too many pupils you say using the bus ? Which bus is that !! Buses are few and far between in this area , School time is congested as it is ,at Robin Lane entrance and Kent road entrance
I see the Pudsey ‘Not In My Back Yard’ (NIMBY’s) – including those dreadful councillors – have got their heads fully in the sand and are already out in force over this.
A super £9million new college with top-class facilities to support the area’s young people in their education? Oh no – we don’t want that in the independent Republic of Pudsey!
Kent Road will easily cope with the traffic, it’s a main road that’s well capable of holding more cars than it does. While I understand the traffic does need to be right, I thoroughly welcome this development.
Leeds City Council: Don’t you dare deprive Pudsey/West Leeds and its young people of this fantastic opportunity. They deserve better than to be let down by adults who should be able to see the bigger picture.
Dear Mr Mcoy, I have lived on the Kents for 50years,we have a virtually none existent bus service, I cannot see pupils from West Leeds, priesthorpe area waking to the school when it’s lashing down so it’s going to be streams of cars non stop all day long. To build this will be harmful to mine and everybody’s health due to the massive increase in Co2 emissions and there will simply be nowhere to park a vehicle, if you think onsite parking will be sufficient then you are living in cloud cuckoo land.