Ringway Primary School

Introduction

Bowmer & Kirkland and the Department for Education are proposing to replace the existing teaching facilities at Ringway Primary School with modern facilities in the form of a new two storey school building with assocated hard and soft landscaping, outdoor play facilities and new pedestrian access arrangements.

Ringway Primary School currently contains capacity for 251 pupils aged 4-11 years, and no change to this capacity is proposed as part of the proposed development.

Members of the local community, school staff, parents and carers are invited to view the design proposals and provide feedback prior to submission of the planning application. 

The Site

The site lies within Choppington, a large village and civil parish in Northumberland, and extends to approximately 1.24 hectares. It comprises a large main school block, caretakers residential property at the northern point of the site, amenity grassland, hardstanding areas of car parking and playground areas.

The Site is bound by existing residential properties to the south, east and west, and open fields bound the site to the north beyond Ringway road.

With regards to public transport, the closest bus stops to the school are located on Ashington Drive, in the vicinity of the junction with Milford Gardens, less than a five-minute walk away. These stops are served by the X22 Sapphire service, between Ashington and Newcastle. The closest railway station is Morpeth, approximately 6.7 kilometres away.

There are no listed buildings on the site or nearby and the site does not lie within a Conservation Area.

The Environment Agency’s flood map for planning indicates that the site is entirely located in Flood Zone 1 and therefore, is at very low risk of flooding. The entirety of the site is also at ‘very low risk ‘ from surface water flooding, meaning there is less than 0.1% chance of flooding from surface water each year.

The Proposal

The Proposed Development seeks to:

– Provide a new modern two-storey school building for Ringway Primary School, providing a capacity for 251 pupils

– Re-configure the existing site, including positioning of the new school block and arrangement of external areas

– Provide new and improved soft and hard outdoor PE areas, soft and hard informal social areas and a landscaping scheme

-Demolish the existing facilities

The new school buiding will be positioned adjacent to the western boundary of the site, and will therefore be roughly located in the centre of the site. A new soft outdoor PE pitch and soft informal area are proposed, with associated landscaping also to the south of the site.

The northern part of the site will be characterised by primary access points to the site and a hard surface car parking area, alongside a nursery reception area and a hard outdoor PE area located immediately north of the building. A forest school/habitat area will also be located to the north-east of the car park.

Providing your Feedback

We invite you to view further details on the proposals, speak to the project team and provide any comments you may have at our consultation event, which will be held on Wednesday 30th August 2023 at Ringway Primary School, Choppington, NE62 5YP from 4pm until 7pm. Please access the consultation event via the main entrance to the school.

If you are unable to attend the event, please use the feedback form below to submit any comments. Alternatively, comments can be emailed to consultation@dppukltd.com or posted to:

DPP, Studio 015, Haylofts, St Thomas Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4LE.

Please submit your comments by no later than 12pm Monday 11 September 2023.

Following closure of the consultation, all feedback will be reviewed ahead of finalising the scheme for the planning application, and will be responded to within a Statement of Community Involvement which will be submitted in support of the planning application. Once the planning application has been submitted there will be a further opportunity for you to comment on the planning application through the LPA’s statutory consultation period.