Calderdale primary schools: Plans to extend Halifax school back before Calderdale Council planning committee

Calderdale Council planning officers are still recommending the plans for the extension at Parkinson Lane Community Primary School be refused.

Planning committee councillors agreed to defer a decision when considering the amendment to an already approved permission in the spring after headteacher Gugsy Ahmed said spiralling building costs meant an £800,000 shortfall.

Proposed changes, which have not received any objections, to design and materials would be different from that approved, councillors heard.

Legal officers told councillors cost factors could be considered as a grounds to support changes on this scale to an existing permission when weighed against benefits of the scheme.

Planning officers said they did not have sufficient detail and on reconsidering the proposals have not changed their recommendation this time around.

In their briefing paper to the council’s planning committee, which meets on Tuesday, July 9, officers say they have assessed construction cost differences for the original scheme, measuring 2021 first quarter prices with the same period this year.

Officers say a budget position from the school’s board of governors, which differed to that Mr Ahmed’s commented on to councillors, has been taken into account in their calculations.

And they argue that building to the original approved design would only cost around two per cent more than the proposed alternative – “negligible”, they say.

“On the current 2024 costings, the stone-built proposal as approved would only be c. £17,395 more expensive than the proposed steel frame and cladding option being considered under this application,” say the briefing notes to councillors.

The proposed changes were “quite significant” in terms of both layout and materials, planning officers said in the spring.

Councillors heard the 561-pupil, 98-staff member school, rated ‘Outstanding’ when by inspected by Ofsted last autumn, was one of the busiest primary schools in Calderdale and needed the extra hall.

Other applications councillors will consider include conversion of a former probation centre at Spring Hall Lane, Halifax, into 36 one-bed and two-bed homes, and conversion of a nursing home at Savile Park Road, Halifax, into six apartments.

Both these other applications have received objections but officers are recommending to councillors that they approve them.