The Cowplain School looks to sell off land to build new theatre

The school has decided to sell off two areas of ‘unused wasteland’ to raise funds to improve the drainage of its sports fields and invest in new performing arts facilities including a theatre.

Headteacher Ian Gates said: ‘We want to create new playing fields by investing some of the money to improve the drainage on our current playing area to hopefully allow them to be used for 52 weeks of the year.

‘We would also like to use some of the money to improve performing arts provision with the creation of a school theatre for productions. While plans have not yet been confirmed, if the governors receive an acceptable offer then this is what we hope to do.’

The advert in The News offers two plots for sale covering a combined area of 1.8 acres with the former brownfield sites divided into one larger plot of 1.28 acres with separate smaller plot of 0.52 acres.

Mr Gates was keen to stress the sale of the land would not be at the expense of any current playing areas.

He added: ‘The land being sold is boggy unused land and therefore it’s reasonable to use this asset to generate funds to for things we can use. The beauty of this project is money raised can be invested in extending the area and availability of of current sports fields.’

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The school has already been granted permission for the sale from the secretary of state for education, Gavin Williamson.

However, there are strict regulations that any sale of school land can only be reinvested into capital budgets which are allocated to improve site facilities. This means any additional funds generated can not be used on investing in teachers, support staff or individual pupil provision.

While the deadline for any sale has been set for December 3, Mr Gates has not set a target on the amount he is hoping to raise.

He added: ‘We hope to raise as much as possible but this will be determined by market forces. Work on the new theatre and drainage is dependent on how long it takes to sell the land.’

Previous surveys suggest the combined plots have space for the development of 18 houses.

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