New secondary school coming to Oldham
The council has approved plans for the 96,600 sq ft Brian Clarke Church of England Academy, which aims to teach 1,200 students when it opens in March 2023.
Under plans designed by FaulknerBrowns Architects, the four-storey school will sit on a 4.6-acre site on Booth Street. The brownfield site used to have a Sainsburys, before plans to demolish the grocery store there were approved in 2017.
Willmot Dixon is the main contractor for the project, which is financed by the Department for Education. Nineteen47 are the planning consultants.
Cranmer Education Trust will operate the school when it is handed over to it in March 2023. It plans for the academy to focus on teaching English, maths, science, humanities, languages and business-oriented classes.
Plans include space for a multi-use game area. The MUGA will have a netball court, informal hard play area and a 55-metre by 37-metre main pitch.
Along with the 1,200 students, the school is slated to have 72 full-time teaching staff and 37 full-time support staff members.
Those staff will park at a new car park with 112 spaces, six of which will be accessible and four that will be electric vehicle bays.
The Brian Clarke Church of England Academy is named after stained-glass artist Brian Clarke, an Oldham native. Clarke is donating a site-specific commissioned piece to the school.
Click any image to launch the gallery. All images by FaulknerBrowns Architects and from the scheme’s planning documents.