Decision due on new Oldbury primary school

A decision on building a new primary school in Oldbury will be made next week.

Sandwell Council’s planning committee meets on September 16 to decide on £20m plans to build a new Causeway Green Primary School on the edge of the former Brandhall golf course in Oldbury.

The new school would be built near the corner of Grafton Road and Ferndale Road as part of the huge Brandhall Village development in Oldbury which includes 190 new homes and a 67-acre public park. 

A total of 19 objections were made against the application. 

The council’s planning officers have recommended the application should be approved. 

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Part of the golf course was twice hit by fire in August. 

The proposed ‘net zero’ school would replace the ‘structurally failing’ Causeway Green Primary in nearby Penncricket Lane which is in “extremely poor condition” and regularly floods. 

The school would employ 50 full-time and eight part-time members of staff and would accommodate 420 pupils, alongside a 26-place nursery. 

A statement included with the council’s planning application said building a new school on the former golf course was the “optimum solution.”

“The proposed site already benefits from outline consent for the proposed use, demonstrating its suitability for school use and acknowledging that the golf course use has long ceased,” it said. 

“The council has committed to designing the new premises to net zero/carbon neutral standard. The school will thereby deliver a high quality learning environment and will require very little heating and cooling. 

“It will generate significantly reduced energy requirements and thereby reduced operational costs.”

The application said the new building would be a “significant improvement and a substantial upgrade” in the quality of the school. 

“The building will present an identifiable image of a regenerated and aspirational educational establishment,” the statement continued. 

Plans to relocate the Oldbury school into a new £20m building were approved by the former Labour administration at Sandwell Council in January this year. 

Peter Hughes, the council’s then cabinet member for regeneration and infrastructure, said that children at Causeway Green would be going from “one of the poorest schools in the borough” to “something that was space age.”

The 70-year-old Oldbury school is “in the worst condition within the maintained school estate” and “beyond [its] economic life” due to the corrosion of steel frames, a cabinet report said, and its structural integrity was “failing.”

The local authority ruled out building a new school on the existing site saying it would cost up to £5 million more.

Building a new school to a Passivhaus standard would cost £1m more than a ‘traditional’ design, the council said, but the associated lower running costs would eventually save the authority money. 

The council said the school had been designed with greener features which includes using insulation, windows and ventilation to hugely reduce the building’s energy demands and carbon footprint. 

The local authority originally looked to build 550 homes on the former Brandhall golf course but slashed its plans by two-thirds after a backlash from campaigners. 

A planning application to build 190 homes on the land was approved in 2023 despite receiving more than 200 objections including those from the Brandhall Green Space Action Group, which was formed to fight off the threat of building on the land.