BBG Academy in Birkenshaw to double in size as plans approved (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

BBG Academy in Birkenshaw to double in size as plans approved

9:00am Friday 26th October 2012 in News

A group of parents who set up their own school have won a bid to double its size.

BBG Academy in Birkenshaw, Bradford, will now get a new sports centre, changing rooms and library, which the community will be able to use outside school hours.

There will also be a new two-storey classroom block and car park.

The school, which opened in the former Birkenshaw Middle School building earlier this year, plans to admit an extra 400 pupils by 2016.

Academy director Andrew Walker said he was “ecstatic” at getting planning permission.

He said he had been part of the long-running campaign to open a secondary school in the community from the beginning.

Mr Walker said: “It has been a long time coming and the community has worked extremely hard here. It means we have finally got a local high school for the local community and also a facility that the whole community can use. It's the icing on the cake, but the work starts here!”

Mr Walker said building work would begin next month and would be completed by September next year.

It will see the internal floorspace virtually double, as well as pupil numbers rising from 350 to 750 and staff numbers from 49 to 97.

The planning application was approved at Kirklees Council’s Heavy Woollen Planning sub-committee yesterday.

Parents fought to set up their own secondary school after Kirklees announced plans to close Birkenshaw Middle School in an education reshuffle. It was intended to be a flagship for the Conservatives’ Free School programme, but in the end the school opened as an academy – a different type of state school funded directly by central Government.