A HOUSING boom in Wellington has forced a multi-million pound decision to expand the town’s Court Fields School to cope with a predicted surge in the number of pupils.

The community school currently has 725 pupils on roll aged 11 to 16, and could accommodate a maximum of 860.

But Somerset County Council calculates numbers will rise even further to 921 by 2021 as a bulge in primary schoolchildren experienced since 2010 works its way into the secondary age group.

And that is without allowing for further new housing still to come on stream at Longforth Farm and Jurston Farm, or the possibility of a major development in Exeter Road, Rockwell Green, if the Deane council loses a planning appeal by Gladman Developments.

Now, the county council has taken an ‘urgent’ decision to go ahead with a project to build three new classrooms and other facilities on the Mantle Street campus in the coming year.

Part of the urgency of the decision was a deadline for the council to spend money given by housing developers for new education facilities in Wellington.

More than £1 million in ‘Section 106’ agreements was handed over by Midas Homes, which developed 69 homes at Westford Grange, and Persimmon Homes for 300 of the houses built at Cades Farm.

But the county council has not yet spent all the money, and has until November 2019 to use the last of it, or it would have to be returned to the developers.

For the full story see this week’s Wellington Weekly News.