Liverpool SEND schools could be combined and expanded
The city council is planning to bring Princes Primary School’s various sites together into a single special educational needs school for 250 pupils in response to insufficient capacity across the city.
Ridge and Partners has led the project on the local authority’s behalf, designing and planning the scheme, which will relocate the four separate Princes Primary School sites into one fully accessible 60,750 sq ft facility off Colwell Road.
The school’s layout has been designed around four central ‘pathways’ with each classroom providing calm rooms and personal care rooms.
A medical treatment room, offices, meeting rooms, and treatment spaces would be found in the main central corridor. As well as a central café and two courtyards.
Hydrotherapy pools and an assembly hall would be found at the front of the single-storey building.
The school has been specifically designed to cater for pupils aged four to 11 with severe learning difficulties, PMLD, and autism spectrum conditions. Around 165 staff are expected to be employed there.
According to Ridge and Partners’ design and access statement, outside space is a central part of the proposals.
Deliberate design choices to ensure each classroom faces directly onto an area of open space, shared between two classrooms, giving the building its branching footprint.
The identified 6.7-acre plot off Colwell Road has been empty since a previous school was demolished in 2006 after closing in 2002.
Access to the school’s car park will be off Colwell Road.
Currently, Princes Primary School’s main site is in Toxteth and caters for around 210 children from the ages of four to eleven with a personalised curriculum, with pupils living city-wide.
Its three other sites are dotted around the city but only host smaller classes. This project aims to bring all the classrooms under one roof.
Arb Tech, Noise Air, Cundall, and Stwido Owens are on the project team.
To view the application, use the reference number 25F/1709 on Liverpool City Council’s planning portal.
SEND is a growing industry
By Anonymous
PM’s and QS’ in a small office lead the project team and none of the rest are based in the city. Never change LCC, you know how to let public money support the growth of the construction sector outside of your own city better than anyone else.
By Benjamin Dover
What about a safe place to play for the local children there is nothing around here and yet it’s been left empty and not utilised. A bike track, skate park, anything would do …
By Anonymous
Great idea needs doing ASAP it is a dumping site
By Carrie Williams