Plea to build school (From Dorset Echo)

Plea to build school

12:30pm Wednesday 23rd July 2008 in

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A LAST-minute plea was issued today for councillors to back a multi-million pound replacement of Mountjoy special school in Bridport.

The rallying cry comes as a motion goes to Dorset County Council's full meeting tomorrow urging the authority to commit to a new school.

Coun Ronald Coatsworth, who is ward county councillor for the Bride Valley, has put the motion before the council.

He said: "I hope everyone will support it.

"It is one of the most neglected areas in Bridport as far as schools are concerned.

"We need to go ahead with the Mountjoy school."

The county council's cabinet has backed Coun Coatsworth's motion to commit to a new school, but it needs the backing of the full council to go ahead.

Coun Coatsworth, who is also a member of West Dorset District Council, will speak at the meeting tomorrow along with parents of pupils at the school.

If the council gives the go-ahead, the new school could be open by 2011. But it would first need to consult interested parties and lodge a planning application.

The original plan was to replace ageing school buildings in Flood Lane with a new complex on the same site, at the rear of the Social Education Centre.

But doubt was cast over the project when the Environment Agency classified the site as at moderate risk of flooding. Councillors were told that the school would need to be built 1.4 metres above the ground to protect it from flooding.

Now the plans will go back through the planning and consultation process, if the council gives the go-ahead.

Coun Coatsworth said the project to build a new school had been going on for nine years and that it was time to find a new site.

He added that it could cost £10 million to build the school on the Flood Lane site and that the council had earmarked £8 million to build it on an alternative site.

The council will work with the school, the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the community to develop options before statutory consultation begins in January.