Green light for new school block

A Herefordshire high school has got the go-ahead for a new classroom block and an all-weather sports pitch.

Fairfield High School in Peterchurch has been given permission to build a new two-storey teaching block with six classrooms and male and female toilets, on what is now a netball court south of the main school building.

This will replace three existing “substandard” classrooms in a temporary building, the application said – though this will be retained and refurbished as “a multi-use teaching space”.

The aim is to “rationalise existing teaching spaces” rather than accommodate more pupils, it adds.

For this reason, there will be “no additional effluent discharge or load” from the school, so no extra drainage is required.

The proposed all-weather sports pitch, replacing the one lost to the new block, will be built on the existing school playing field, and will not be illuminated.

The school currently has about 450 pupils, drawn from the villages of Peterchurch, Dorstone, Cusop and the surrounding Golden Valley borderlands. Its most recently published Ofsted inspection rated it as “outstanding”.