THE first steps towards building a £5 million special school on the Wey Valley School site in Weymouth are due to be given the go-ahead at a county council meeting.

Plans for hard play areas including tennis courts, multi-use play areas and an all-weather athletics track, as well as car park improvements, are to go before councillors at a planning meeting tomorrow.

The proposals are the first to be discussed by Dorset's planning committee involving the relocation of Wyvern Special School onto the Wey Valley campus since Government funding was announced in April last year.

It is hoped the new building will provide better facilities for the special school students and increase social interaction between pupils of all abilities. A recent study showed Wey Valley needed more hard-surface play areas and improvements to parking.

The plans to go before Dorset county councillors include hard surfacing for play areas to the south of the site and along the English and science blocks.

A row of four new fenced and floodlit tennis courts would be built along the southern boundary of the school playing fields, one of which would be able to be divided into four mini-courts for younger players.

A new fenced-off hard play area would be built close to the courts as well as an all-weather athletics track and new artificial cricket wicket.

The tennis courts and athletics track will help the Dorchester Road school achieve sporting excellence after it scooped sports college status in February this year, unlocking more than £750,000 of funding.

As part of the plans the main car park at the school would have designated traffic routes and marked parking bays with a new small wall being built to separate traffic and pedestrians.

The existing cycle sheds would be removed to make way for a three-sided wooden refuse area and extra lighting would be added.

The new school is planned for part of Wey Valley's playing fields to the east of buildings already on the site. That work is to be the subject of a separate planning application but the groundwork for the building is included in the current proposals.

If the plans are approved it is hoped to start work in the summer holidays.