PLANS to use a popular recreation ground to help school leaders prepare for a permanent move have met with 'serious concern'.

The Heights Primary School intends to relocate to Mapledurham Playing Fields (MDPF) after Reading Borough Council granted planning permission.

As part of the move, proposals have been drafted to allow the school, which currently operates from a temporary site on Gosbrook Road, to take in up to 100 new pupils in the two years it will take for the new building to be constructed.

St Anne's Primary agreed to work with the council by allowing for a temporary modular building to be located on their land, while the council suggested Westfield Park for recreational use.

The new building would house 75 Heights pupils, freeing up space in the original building for the new reception intake.

The idea is currently out for consultation and councillor Richard Davies recently held a meeting at the recreation ground.

The Caversham ward councillor said: "The council proposed to use an area of Westfield Road Recreation Ground to provide outdoor playing space for the children.

"The area would be fenced-off, but would be open to the public outside school hours. I have serious concerns about fencing-off part of a well-used and popular park and intend to object to the scheme in its current form.

"I am also concerned that the expansion will have impacts on the surrounding roads."

St Anne's is immediately adjacent to the current temporary site of The Heights, which is already at capacity with 225 students.

Friends of Westfield Park was launched as a campaign group after the plans were revealed. The council's planning committee will make a decision on May 30.

Councillor Tony Jones, lead member for Education, added: “This is a practical solution which would enable The Heights Primary School to accommodate 50 new reception children in each of the following two years, starting in September 2018, while The Heights wait for a permanent site to be found.

“I know Karen Edwards, head teacher of The Heights, is enormously grateful for the support St Anne’s has shown staff, parents and children at The Heights since it moved onto the temporary site in 2014."