Leeds West Academy has been given the green light to expand after a planning application for new classrooms and extended dining facilities received planning permission.
White Rose Academies Trust will build extensions to the existing main school building which will provide new teaching accommodation, dining facilities and shower/changing facilities.
The proposals will also create eight new car parking spaces, including two new electric vehicle charging points, at the Intake Lane site.
A design statement submitted with the plans states:
“The school’s ambition is to improve its facilities for the benefit of its existing pupils and staff, and to enable the school to accommodate an additional 300 pupils and eight staff by 2023, thus fulfilling its potential capacity as originally intended.”
The three extensions will be at the rear and side of the building. They will include a new science lab, six new classrooms, a new office/staff work room, a store room, a dining hall extension and satellite servery to provide seating for an additional 300 pupils and 19 new shower cubicles in the existing male and female changing area.
Leeds City Council approved the application, subject to a raft of conditions. A council planning officer’s report concluded:
“The proposed development is considered to be acceptable in planning terms and lies within an area of sufficient size to accommodate such a use without having a detrimental impact upon both the visual and residential amenity of the area as well as its general character.
“Overall, it is considered that the proposed scheme is of an acceptable quality in design terms and delivers essential new school places as well as improved educational accommodation and facilities.
“The scheme has been designed and conditioned to respond to highway issues.”
The school currently has about 1,200 pupils and 150 staff.
The plans can be viewed in full here. WLD first reported on the proposals here.