Consultation opens into £6.8m upgrade of Peterborough special school

The city council has received planning permission to expand Heltwate School so that it is able to provide 206 places in permanent accommodation.

The school currently provides 140 places at its site in Bretton, as well as 66 through its St George’s campus and mobile classrooms.

The aim is to replace the temporary accommodation with a permanent build from March 2023 after the council bought the former Silver Jubilee pub in Heltwate to enable the expansion.

Works are due to begin this summer.

Heltwate is a community special school for children and young people aged four to 19 with moderate to severe learning difficulties, all of whom have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). The school was judged Good by Ofsted when inspected in November 2018.

The change to the number of permanent accommodation places at Heltwate should “have a positive impact on the pupils currently at the school,” the council said.

It is now running a consultation which will end on Monday, June 14. It said it will give “careful consideration to all comments received during the consultation before reaching a decision on whether or not to proceed with the proposed formalisation of pupil numbers and changes to current accommodation”.

Questions can be asked - or comments left - either by emailing [email protected] and including the words “Heltwate Consultation” in the subject line, or by attending a Zoom meeting on Monday, May 24 at 7pm.

The meeting ID is: https://zoom.us/j/95030398266.

The council bought the Silver Jubilee for £650,000 in 2020.

The expansion of Heltwate will create a new two-storey building for early years pupils.

Other changes will include a new multiple use games area, existing public open space converted to school playing fields, a public footpath linking Heltwate to Pyhill and an additional 25 parking spaces.

The new building will cater for Nursery, Reception and Year 1 pupils, while the main site will provide for Key Stage 2 and 3 pupils.

More information on the consultation can be found at: https://www.peterborough.gov.uk/council/consultations/heltwate-special-school.