New primary school opens at Locking Parklands
Construction of a new primary school on Homes England and St Modwen’s Locking Parklands development in Weston-Super-Mare completed in the summer.
The Parklands Educate Together Primary School opened for pupils on Monday 7th September. The school is the first of up to three new primary schools planned for Parklands Village by North Somerset Council to meet the increasing numbers of children requiring school places in the area.
Over the next 10 years up to 3,650 homes and more than 5,000 new jobs will be created across Parklands Village. Located on the former RAF Locking base, the development includes St. Modwen’s delivery of Locking Parklands, which will see the creation of up to 1,450 new homes.
The new school has 14 classrooms and early years nursery. It will initially have 420 primary school places and a pre-school with capacity to expand to 630 places when required.
Outside the school day the local community will have access to a meeting space and the school hall. The hall has been designed to facilitate theatre activities and it is hoped the school will become a hub for local activity outside school hours.
The £9m contract to build the school was awarded to Willmott Dixon and the Educate Together Academy Trust was appointed as sponsor of the new school.
This project is a demonstration of fantastic collaboration between the council, Willmott Dixon and Educate Together Academy Trust who have worked through some incredibly difficult times to deliver a spacious, light and innovative primary school in time for the start of the new school year. “The building is amazing and truly inspirational. I’m sure the children and the staff are going to love it. Every classroom and space has its own unique aspect and is built to a high quality in terms of design and delivery. The size of the rooms and supporting spaces and the well-planned outdoor areas will be the envy of many other schools.”
Cllr Catherine Gibbons, North Somerset Council’s executive member for children’s services and lifelong learning
Homes England and its development partner St. Modwen are delighted that Parklands Educate Together Primary School is opening in time for the new school year. This has been a result of collaboration between many different parties, but particularly Educate Together, Willmott Dixon and North Somerset Council. The school, part-funded through developer contributions from Locking Parklands, is at the heart of the development and its delivery is an important milestone in the creation of the new community.”
David Moore, Senior Development Manager at St. Modwen
2020 has been a challenging year and, despite the necessary construction site closures and programme delays due to the COVID pandemic, our St. Modwen infrastructure delivery team, which includes Prosurv, Hydrock and PM Harris have worked extremely hard to ensure that the new primary school site was fully serviced and accessible in time for it’s opening at the start of the new school term.”
Lisa Cook, Technical Manager at St. Modwen
