Alfred Sutton School seeks longer temporary building stay

Alfred Sutton Primary School has applied for the temporary planning permission to retain its double-stack modular building, which has four classrooms, for another five years.

Reading Borough Council’s (RBC) Planning Applications committee will vote on whether to approve the plans on Wednesday, June 2.

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The council’s planning team has recommended the plan be approved.

Planning officer Connie Davis said: “It is considered that the temporary loss of open space would be acceptable in this case due to the justifiable and overriding need to provide additional classroom space at this school at the present time.”

The school was originally granted planning permission in 2013 on a temporary basis for two years, with planning permission then granted in October 2014 for a new teaching block for an under age 5 playgroup and school nursery.

The temporary modular classroom was to be used whilst these works were being carried out and the plan was to remove it once the permanent extension was complete.

Further temporary permission was granted in 2015 for another 18 months.

The school extension has now been completed but the temporary classroom has remained in place.

Previously, the plan was for the temporary classroom to be relocated to Moorlands Primary school but pupil forecasting determined the places were no longer needed at that school.

Moorlands Primary School no longer needs the temporary modular building

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the school is using the additional space to allow for greater separation distances between pupils during the pandemic.

Alfred Sutton now wants further planning permission to keep the temporary classroom building on site for another five years.

The council says the school needs to ensure it has a five per cent floating capacity available to provide space for students, should the need arise.

“A rising population in Reading has seen increasing demand for primary places”, officers said, and the council “needs to ensure adequate provision and facilities are in place to meet this demand”.

Sport England has previously objected to the plans, as they say it “prejudices the use or leads to the loss of use of land being used as a playing field”.

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But it has withdrawn its objection for this current application, as long as the temporary building is removed from the site on time and the playing field is reinstated appropriately.