Plans to demolish and rebuild a primary school in Heckmondwike have taken another step forward after engineers confirmed a former coal mining site beneath part of the land has been made safe for development.
The Co-op Academy, on Leeds Old Road, was granted planning permission by Kirklees Council last year for a major redevelopment that will replace the ageing school with a modern building.
New documents submitted to the council state that concerns over historic shallow coal mine workings have now been addressed.
A Ground Gas Risk Assessment carried out by HEXA found that although historic mining had been identified beneath the site, the risks had been successfully mitigated. The report concluded that the treated land is suitable for the proposed development.
The project will be delivered in phases to allow the school to continue operating while construction takes place. During the first phase, pupils and staff will move into the new building before the existing school is demolished. The second phase will focus on completing the remaining site works and landscaping.
Because of the scale of the redevelopment, several planning conditions must be approved before construction can continue.
The latest submission is intended to satisfy requirements relating to ground remediation and site stabilisation.
The current three-storey school building was constructed between 1961 and 1970 and originally served as a secondary school.
After closing in the 1990s, it reopened in 1995 as Leeside Community Primary School.
It later became The John Curwen Co-operative Primary Academy in 2015 before entering special measures and transferring to the Co-operative Academies Trust in 2019.
The academy currently educates children aged three to 11 and has capacity for 236 pupils.
If Kirklees Council approves the latest submissions, developer Bowmer and Kirkland Ltd will move another step closer to delivering what planning documents describe as a “bright, robust and durable” new school.
