New school plan for college site
A FORMER Nottingham College building is earmarked for demolition to make way for a secondary school.
The city council will decide whether the demolition of the former Nottingham College Clarendon buildings on Pelham Avenue, Nottingham can go ahead to prepare for the building of a new 1,200-place school.
More than £5 million of council grants will be spent to allow for the transformation the ex-college site into a free school academy called Bluecoat Trent, in order to accommodate the rising numbers of pupils in the city.
Locals thought that the plans would be a positive for the city, although some questioned the logic in demolishing the old education building to build a new one.
Trevor Bartlett, 78, a retired photographer from Beeston, said: “I used to go there 50 years ago and I did not know about the plans for it to be knocked down.
“It used to be a great college for all sorts of stuff, in the 1960s and 1970s. It was well used in its time.
“It’s not a shame for it to be demolished, it has had its day and now it has to go.”
There will eventually be 1,200 secondary school places at Bluecoat Trent - 240 places per year until all year groups are full.
The DFE will manage the redevelopment and new school build ready for 2023.
The current capacity for existing secondary academies in Nottingham will not provide enough Year 7 places for September 2022, Nottingham City Council has confirmed.
The current sixth form students at the Aspley site will be moved to the Nottingham College campus on Maid Marian Way to make room for the new Year 7 cohort - a move that has angered some parents who had specifically chosen the site for its locality.
Justine Parker, 32, a mother-oftwo from Forest Fields, said: “As a mum, more school places can only really be a good thing as long it’s sorted out quickly.
“But I do wonder why it couldn’t have been refurbished and used as a school without it being demolished.
“I feel like that would have been greener and better for local residents.”
Mustaf Ahmed, 41, a shop worker from Forest Fields, said: “We always need more stuff like schools don’t we.
“It being closed is no help to people really is it, and there is graffiti around it.
“If school places are needed then why not, the only bad thing maybe is that it doesn’t need to all be knocked down.”
The Department for Education (DFE) and Archway Learning Trust, who will manage Bluecoat Trent, will be working together to build the new school.
In the meantime students at the new free school started in September this year at the Bluecoat Aspley campus.