A new school building for children with special educational needs and disabilities in Tameside will cost nearly £10m more and open a year later than planned.
In the summer of 2021 the borough’s cabinet signed off on proposals to relocate and expand Hawthorns School from Audenshaw to a new site at Longdendale Playing Fields, in Mottram in Longdendale.
The project, which was budgeted at £13m, was granted planning approval in December with the aim of opening the new building by September this year, at which point the ‘dated’ Lumb Lane site would close.
However an update report presented to the executive cabinet states that the cost of the project has ‘changed significantly’ while being developed.
The total cost of the scheme has now increased to £22.76m, the extra funding for which will come from the education capital funding budget.
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And provisional dates of the construction programme now state that work would start on site in May, with the completion and occupation of the new school from September 2024.
Officers state: “There have been significant increases in cost since the original estimate from the LEP (Local Education Partnership) in 2021 due to the economic climate and additional design requirements which are outlined in the report, mainly the construction of football pitches to meet the planning requirements of Sport England and looking to achieve carbon neutral status.”
Councillor Jacqueline North told the cabinet meeting: “The school building will be funded entirely from education grant with no cost to the general fund and council tax payers.”
However the report also warns that, whilst there is ‘sufficient headroom in the education capital budgets to accommodate this increase, the impact of the increased costs is that there is a reduction in residual funding to support other capital projects that may be needed to increase school places in the borough’.
Hawthorns School is a primary age special school which caters for pupils with a range of ‘complex’ special educational needs, including autism.
The number of children with an education, health and care plan in Tameside has risen from 519 in 2014/15 to more than 2,600 as of April this year.
The Longdendale school would have capacity for up to 220 pupils, an increase on the previous number of 75 – which it is already far exceeding.
Site enabling works have already commenced at the new school location, including site clearance, access and boundary protection.
It would include four early years classrooms, 12 classrooms for pupils with autistic spectrum disorder, nine classrooms for youngsters with moderate learning difficulties.
There would also be additional specific teaching spaces for art, drama, ICT and life skills, a library, sports hall, and training and family room.
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