My fears over plan for school expansion

CROMPTON House School in Shaw, Oldham, is about to apply for planning permission for a massive expansion.

The proposal will allow for another 600 additional students in addition to the 1,400 pupils who already attend this school – plus the necessary additional number of teachers and staff.

Existing buildings are to be expanded and a new teaching block will be built on the school site. There will also be two new 40-vehicle car parks, one of which will be built alongside a block of flats and behind existing dwellings on Grampian Way, the proposal also includes a new multi-use games area behind Crompton Cemetery.

As you would expect the noise levels at break times and during the daytime use of the sports facilities will increase substantially.

The 80 new vehicles using the new car parks will create a substantial increase in the amount of additional noise and pollution produced by this school site.

Oldham council’s planning department has once again deemed that it is not necessary to ask for a noise assessment on the proposed expansion, just as it did a few years ago when it granted planning permission for a new 3G pitch on this school site. This pitch is now in constant use – not only during school hours – but by a community football club with 90 teams who use the pitch seven days a week.

The surprising thing is that, since 2012, the council has asked for noise assessments to be carried out on nearly all other similar projects including Yew Tree School, Royton and Oldham Sports Centres, several sports facilities located near the Foxdenton proposal and the proposed new Saddleworth school.

So why not Crompton House School? Surely it’s not because the council is afraid that the noise assessment would almost certainly prevent the proposal going ahead.

The only way to prove if noise will be a significant nuisance, or not, once the expansion programme is brought into use is to have a noise assessment during the planning stage.

It should not rely on some planning officer’s guess work or left to see how many complaints there are from residents once the school and its car parks are in use. Graham Wilcock, Shaw

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