Darlington Borough Council is considering transforming Eastbourne School into an Academy in order to help deliver a higher level of educational opportunity and attainment for its pupils.
An Academy is a publicly funded, all-ability, independent school established by sponsors working in partnership with the Government and local councils. Academies provide free education for every pupil. The Church of England, as the sponsor of the Eastbourne Academy, has a proven track record of delivering high quality education through its Voluntary Controlled, Voluntary Aided and Academy Schools.
It is proposed that the new Academy would open in September 2007 on the existing site at Eastbourne School. The school itself is to undergo a series of improvements. The council and the sponsor have recently carried out extensive consultation on the principal of creating an academy, with residents expressing strong support for the proposal.
The academy project will include the provision of a new building to replace the existing school, to be available by late 2009. The council has looked at a range of options and is considering part of Hundens Park as the site for the new Academy.
The proposals are at an early stage of development, but we want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to voice their views on this aspect of the Academy project. This period of consultation is so you can consider the Hundens Park site, and how it could be developed to provide a new building to help improve educational opportunities for Eastbourne pupils. This is an opportunity to comment on the outline proposals which will form the basis of a planning application and help to shape the way they move forward.
There has been previous consultation on principle of school closure and formation of new academy the results of which showed strong support for the academy. This second round of consultation focuses on the new building project. In the future the Council will respond to views expressed during this period of consultation before submitting a planning application. They will then be a period of statutory consultation as part of the planning process giving people the chance to comment on planning application. Throughout the whole process there will be ongoing involvement of key stakeholders such as Sport England. The consultation process is vital to the project and highlights a wide range of views and requirements which will need to be balanced to achieve best possible proposals.
The Council’s view is that, subject to planning permission, the best location for the new academy is at Hundens Park. Although other sites were considered these were not appropriate for the development of a school this size for a number of reasons.
Please take time to look at the maps and plans regarding the new academy. The map showing ‘Site Constraints’ highlights the various difficulties with the site like public rights of way that will need to be overcome in the design of the Academy.
The conceptual design works with these site constraints to give an idea of where the school buildings would be best located on the site and how the access could work.
Please let us have your views on the Academy proposals by Friday 13th April, by filling in a feedback form or writing a letter and send it to Peter Roberts at:
Town Hall,
Darlington,
DL1 5QT
peter.roberts@darlington.gov.uk
Please click on the following links for the feedback form and maps
Community Consultation Event – Feedback Form (pdf document)
Map 1 – Site Constraints (pdf document)
Map 2 – Illustrative Proposals (pdf document)