New secondary school for Wisbech gets green-light from Cambridgeshire County Council

A new £23million secondary school for Wisbech has been given the thumbs-up and should be open in just two years' time.

Cambridgeshire County Council's children and young people's committee approved the 'school campus' scheme on council-owned land off Barton Road at their meeting on Tuesday.

The project will eventually also include a new primary school and a specially built building for the town's Unity School, which provides education for children with specialist behavioural needs and was set to leave Wisbech.

Councillor Steve Tierney, area member for Wisbech, spoke at the meeting to urge councillors not to delay the scheme, which has already been delayed once.

Afterwards Coun Tierney said: "This is fantastic news for Wisbech. People always complain that the town is growing but the infra-structure is not being improved.

"Wisbech is now at a size where it needs a second secondary school especially when the 1,500 homes are built to the town's East and with the Garden Town proposal in the pipeline. The new school will cover the catchment area that side of the river and will also serve villages like Wisbech St Mary, Guyhirn and Gorefield.

"It will have a four form entry to start with providing 600 places, but it will have the potential to expand. It is due to open by September 2020, so now the work begins to find a suitable academy body to manage it and to put the scheme out to tender so it can be built."

The committee unanimously agreed to the new school after hearing that delays could see project costs rocket by up to £1 million with a one year delay and over £3.5million in just three years.

A report explained the Thomas Clarkson Academy had the potential for some growth but added there had been concern over TCA being the only secondary school, particularly if it were to become much larger.

The report said: " Those supporting this view believed that a better performing school would offer more choice to parents and help staunch the long-established flow of pupils seeking to undertake their secondary education outside Wisbech."

Over the previous three years just over half of children in TCA feeder primary schools attend the Wisbech School with 148 travelling to Neale-Wade Academy in March.