New primary school approved for North East Lincolnshire
It'll be built in Waltham
A new, more than 200 places primary school will be built in Sunningdale, Waltham.
North East Lincolnshire Council’s planning committee approved it, just. Parking and traffic concerns had prompted a number of residents to object and some councillors were not satisfied it was the right place for a primary.
The vote was split five-all, leaving chair Cllr Nick Pettigrew, to cast the deciding vote. A Waltham Ward councillor, he intended to abstain because of concerns he had. But forced to decide, he reluctantly agreed to approve.
The Waltham primary will have a classroom for each year group and reception and nursery classrooms. Besides four outdoor play areas, there will be a wildlife area, playing fields and a 100m running track at the school too.
In December, a twin primary school at Scartho Top was approved. Waltham Gateway Primary Academy, as it will be known, was up before planning then. A decision was deferred though, with councillors requesting further consideration of parking and drop-off points. When the Waltham school plans were first proposed in September 2022, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) spoke to residents, who were concerned about traffic.
A subsequent planning report offered little change from before. “It’s been restated it wouldn’t be appropriate to have car parking for visitors,” a planning officer told the councillors on January 3. The report states, “conflict situations with parents in vehicles at busy times are likely” if the car park was used by visitors. It would also raise a safety aspect with cars turning.
Parent pull-in or laybys were considered during the application, on Sunningdale and Archer Road. But all parties, including council highways and Equans, deemed these unacceptable. Parents “driving aggressively” at an existing site at Healing Academy was evidence these do not work.
An amendment of a traffic regulation order (TRO) to ensure road markings in place before school construction was the only change from a month ago. Objector Paul Enderby argued there was no need for such a school in Waltham, citing 2021 census data.
He said it was “basically in the wrong place” and warned of a substantial increase in traffic. “If you had carte blanche to pick any site in Waltham for a proposed school, that proposed site wouldn’t even make the top ten.”
Council officer Christine Scott and Equans architect Sarah Perry spoke in favour, together. Ms Scott said there was a statutory duty for the council to provide school places, and the site had always been identified as education land.
Cllr Ian Lindley said a lot of existing primaries were landlocked by residential homes and the council had to meet its legal duty on school places. “Building schools in remote areas is not the answer.”
Paying attention to Mr Enderby’s argument the school would end up largely serving kids not from Waltham, Cllr Henry Hudson opposed. “If everybody was going to walk to this, that would be absolutely fine.” It was “a square peg in a round hole”, for Cllr Kevin Shutt. He agreed with Cllr Hudson it would be better for the council to sell the land and do something different.
Cllr Paul Batson said there were 13 and a half million cars in the country in 1976, when it was allocated for education purposes, but now there were 32 million. “I don’t know the answer to it fully, but I don’t think it is the ideal site for the school.”
“If we drag our feet on this, we are going to create problems further in time,” warned Cllr Lindley of the council’s school places duty. His persuasive power did not prevent the initial tied vote.
Martin Brown, CEO of Lincolnshire Gateway Academies Trust, appointed to run the two new free schools serving Waltham and Scartho, said: “We’re pleased both have now been approved by planners. We’re looking forward to continuing to work closely with North East Lincolnshire Council and our other partners to provide additional, quality education provision in Waltham and Scartho.
“We will keep residents informed throughout the build and there will be opportunities for local communities to engage with us to help address any concerns.” Despite the delay, it is understood that like the sister Scartho Top primary, Waltham Gateway Primary Academy will aim to be up and running by September 2025.