Go ahead for new A21 school building

At a planning meeting last Thursday, Claremont School was given the go-ahead for a new school building, next to the existing school on the A21.

Claremont currently takes pupils aged up to 13, but the new school will enable pupils aged up to 18 to attend.

Work on the new building is expected to start imminently, with the construction taking place in three stages.

The first stage includes a dining/multi purpose hall, kitchen and servery, library, two classrooms, staff and office accommodation and pupils' social area on the ground floor and three science labs and an ICT suite and rooms on the first floor.

Further general and specialist classrooms will be built in the second and third phases.

Staff parking, parent drop-off facilities and areas for informal use by students are also planned.

A new access road will be created with changes to the existing A21 entrance.

The new school is expected to open in September 2011 and Claremont is expecting to employ between 50 and 60 extra staff.

Principal Mark Beaumont said: "We are absolutely delighted that the committee voted for providing another good school in the area, and jobs, and education."

He added: "It's very good news for the area.

"People are saying there's not enough choice of where to send children when they leave junior school and here is a very good option."

Claremont will just take Year 9 pupils in the first year, building up one year group at a time.

The school is holding scholarship exams in November and is taking registrations for the senior school for the next three years.

Mr Beaumont said: "We have done this because our children were not getting the choice they deserved when they left this prep school.

"We are thinking about the future.

"The school will develop a year at a time and if there are any parents who have been sitting on the sidelines waiting to see if it's going to happen they should get in contact with us immediately."

Giles Perrin will be the headmaster at the new senior school when it opens.

Mr Perrin, whose father was Head at St Bedes School in Eastbourne for many years, was selected by Claremont to set up the new school after heading up a similar project in India.

Although Rother District Council's planning committee received more than 130 letters, many from parents, in support of the proposals, the plans were met with fierce opposition from residents in Moat Lane, Westfield, which runs alongside the new school site.

Residents fear the new school will turn Moat Lane into a rat run and result in increased traffic, more accidents and parking problems in the lane.

They also raised environmental and pollution issues and said the new building would be intrusive and overlook adjoining residents.

The Highway Authority objected to Moat Lane being used by construction traffic.

Westfield Parish Council also lodged an objection, calling the size of the development 'inappropriate' and also raising issues of increased traffic in Moat Lane and on the A21.

But Mr Beaumont said: "We spent years planning this and taking advice and using consultants to take in everybody's needs, not just the children but residents and everyone who uses the road.

"There's nothing nicer than hearing children playing and children's voices and it's better than having factory noise in the background."

When the plans were approved, a number of conditions were attached.

These include that samples of materials used in construction must be submitted to the planning authority and no development should take place until full details of access and car parking are approved in writing by the authority.