Road and nature worries over new Worcester secondary school
The project for the new 600-capacity school off Newtown Road is still on track for a September 2026 opening.
Concerns over road safety and nature have been raised as part of the project to build a new secondary school in Worcester.
Worcestershire County Council has said despite some setbacks, the project for the new 600-capacity school off Newtown Road is still on track for a September 2026 opening.
After a long search, the county council revealed in 2021 it would be building a new 600-strong secondary school in the Newtown Road area of the city and later announced that Oasis Community Learning, which is made up of 52 schools including primary school Oasis Academy in Warndon, as the new school’s sponsor.
The building of the new school was branded “controversial” by one city headteacher, who questioned its need and whether £40 million was a “waste of money.”
Neil Morris, headteacher at Christopher Whitehead Language College in Worcester, called out council bosses for pushing to build a new secondary school before addressing the existing problems in what he called a “broken” system.
He said a decision to push ahead with the multi-million-pound work and build it close to the catchment areas of other ‘struggling’ schools was “controversial” to many of the city’s other headteachers.
“We’re not sure there’s the need, we’re not sure there are the places and it seems a lot of money,” he told councillors at a Guildhall meeting, as reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
Worcestershire County Council said there was a definite need for more school places in the city and the plans had been drawn after “extensive” talks and consultation.
Education chief Cllr Tracey Onslow has said the concerns of local residents will be listened to.
“The main issues that have been raised are at location and our highways and the biodiversity effect because obviously it is a green space at the moment,” she said.
“When we've collated all of those, we would obviously look to see what mitigation we can do to overcome some of those issues, particularly those from local residents.”
She added: “There's obviously issues to overcome as there is with any new build.
“We will be looking and to overcome all of those and we will be looking to adhere to the opening date of September 2026 to year seven.”
With around five thousand new homes being built in and around the city over the next fifteen years, Worcestershire County Council says it 'critically' needs to meet demand.
A consultation on the proposed new school runs until next week.