Trafford Council has recommended that further consultation should take place on plans to amalgamate Stamford Park Infant and Junior schools in Hale and build a new multi-million pound primary school building on the existing site.
The council’s Executive Committee met on Monday and approved a new six-week period of consultation, beginning next month, to establish whether plans for the new three-form entry primary school – accommodating an extra 20 pupils per year group – should be taken forward.
The consultation will include “additional precautionary measures” in order to improve the verification responses after a high number of unverified, unnamed responses were received during an initial public consultation held in June and July.
During that consultation, 82% of parents who submitted a verified response were in favour of the plans to build a new school, out of a total of 182 parents who responded.
The adjoining Stamford Park Infant and Junior schools, which have been on Cedar Road in Hale since 1905, are home to over 500 pupils aged between three and 11.
The council is proposing to build a new 3,081 sq m building on existing school playing fields and then demolish the existing buildings to make way for a new playing field and car parking. The current school building is 2,355 sq m.
It says the condition of the existing buildings is “deteriorating” and the new build would meet the “pressing need for additional school places in the area”.
But while the Infant school is in favour of the plan, the Junior school is against it, and is instead wishing to convert to academy status.
At the end of the new period of consultation, the council would consider the feedback and decide whether or not to proceed with the publication of statutory notices, giving all parties four weeks to submit representation to the proposal. At the end of this stage, the council would determine the outcome.
