Plans for £20m new Oldbury primary school and 190 new homes take a step forward
A plan to build a new £20m school in Oldbury is set to move forward.
Sandwell Council is looking to build a new Causeway Green Primary School as part of the huge new Brandhall Village in Oldbury which includes 190 new homes and a 67-acre public park.
The proposed new 420-pupil ‘net zero’ school, which would be built on the former Brandhall golf course, would replace the existing and ‘structurally failing’ Causeway Green Primary in nearby Penncricket Lane.
Sandwell Council’s cabinet meets on January 14 and will be asked to approve spending more than £20m on the new school.
Sandwell Council said the existing Causeway Green Primary School was in “extremely poor condition” and regularly flooded.
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, the council said, and its structural integrity was “failing.”
The new school would be built on the former golf course near the corner of Grafton Road and Ferndale Road.
The latest plans say work would start on the new school this autumn and would be finished by early 2028.
A cabinet report from November 2024 detailing funding for Brandhall Village said the new school was expected to open in early 2027.
Sandwell Council said building a new school on a different site would be the “most cost-effective solution.”
The local authority ruled out building a new school on the existing site saying it would cost up to a further £5 million.
Building a new school to a greener 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 ‘Passivhaus’ principles 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.
