Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council and Warwickshire county council have been approving plans for 1,000s of homes north of Nuneaton without proper plans to provide primary school places when they are needed, i.e. NOW.

We already need around 300 more primary school places in North East Nuneaton. This shortage is resulting in parents driving children across town, driving twice day to Hartshill or even keeping children out of school till a place becomes free.

We have a new school opening off Weddington Road in September 2019 but will just have one reception year class at that point. The two other possible primary schools may not get built for many years as they will depend on developers for very large sites coming forward and building out enough homes on Callander farm (phase 2) and Top farm developments to fund schools, if they ever happen.

To highlight the issue and provide a possible solution, I have to submitted a “change of use application” to Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough council planners to convert the North Wing of the Town Hall to temporary primary school for the period of up to 6 years.

Hopefully the planning department will have the application online in around a week and people can send in 100s of letters of support to highlight the need for school places to be delivered now.

UPDATE 9th January 2019

The council has refused the application as it is using a loop hole that the council offices are not classed as offices (B1) due to them being connected to the public areas of the Town Hall. I will have a meeting on Monday with the council to see how we can move forward. The worst case is that we need to raise a few hundred pounds more to make a new application.

Original application