Plans for a £30m supersize Secondary school on the former Stag Brewery site in Mortlake are being backed by Richmond Council.

A special Education Committee meeting held last week decided to support the six-form entry school, to be called Livingstone Academy, despite opposition from a residents' group, a headteacher and a local primary school.

The committee heard from Council officials that the borough's secondary schools will be 'more full than ever' when the new academic year begins in September.

Pressure is particularly severe in the east of the borough – Mortlake and Barnes - where there is already a potential shortage of places.

It was reported that Grey Court and Christ's are heavily over-subscribed, while the third secondary, Richmond Park Academy (RPA), is also virtually full.

Council officials say that a series of major house building schemes including on the Stag Brewery site, Ham Close, the former Homebase in North Sheen, Barnes Hospital and Kew Retail Park will increase demand.

As a result, councillors agreed the new school, which will eventually have some 1,100 pupils, is needed to avoid local families losing out in future years.

Cllr Penny frost. Credit: Richmond Borough Council.

Cllr Penny Frost, Chair of the Education and Children's Services Committee, said: "In seeking to fulfil its statutory duty to ensure a sufficiency of school places for its resident children, Richmond Council first identified the need for a fourth secondary school in the east of the borough in October 2015. It has been working with the Department for Education since 2018 to enable a new school, Livingstone Academy, to ensure that it continues to fulfil that duty in the long term.

"Among the three oversubscribed existing schools - Christ's, Grey Court and Richmond Park Academy (RPA), in the current Year 7 there are already two classes worth of pupils over their collective published admission numbers (PANs).

"The Ham Close regeneration will considerably reduce Grey Court's catchment. Other large approved, proposed and possible housing developments - at Barnes Hospital; Homebase, North Sheen; Kew Retail Park; and Stag Brewery - are likely to lead to much-increased demand for places at Christ's and RPA. The impacts of this are that many local children would be without secondary school places unless the proposed new school opened."

She added: "At present, RPA is 99.1% full in years 7 to 11, with only eight vacancies out of 900 places. Due to its proximity to the Wandsworth boundary, a significant portion of its places will always be taken up by Wandsworth-resident children. By law, the school cannot reserve its places for Richmond upon Thames borough resident children.

"In order to manage existing demand, a large number of additional places each year are offered over the existing three schools' published admission numbers – 165 in total this year - in the expectation that some parents will instead opt for independent schools so that the numbers of accepted offers reduce. Given that this year there are a further 68 children in the east of the borough for whom no offer could be made last week, it is clear that this situation is unsustainable. 

"The opening of Livingstone Academy, subject to planning permission, is the only way to guarantee to parents and carers that enough places will be available in the east of the borough for generations of local children to come."

The new school and the cost of construction will be funded by the Department for Education. It will be part of a group of schools which includes establishments in Feltham, Hanworth and Hillingdon

The school would be named Livingstone Academy. Credit: https://stag-brewery.co.uk/

Critics of the school, which is unlikely to be built and open before 2026 at the earliest, argue it is not needed. They point to a falling birth rate in the borough and argue the impact of the new housing schemes has been over-stated.

Ahead of the meeting, the head of RPA, Nabila Jiwa, wrote a letter to councillors, saying there were 'serious concerns about proposals for a large new secondary school with 6th Form, within our catchment'.

She added: 'We are strongly opposed to the new secondary school being built because we have serious concerns about its impact on the viability of Richmond Park Academy and other neighbouring schools, especially at sixth form."

She argued that official Council's projections overstate the need for Secondary School age children in the borough.

"We therefore do not believe a new school is required and by building a new school there will be over-capacity in the east of the borough from 2023, which will be at the detriment to the existing schools."

Miss Jiwa said a falling birthrate in the borough seen in recent years means that, despite the new housing developments, there is no need for another secondary school.

She said: "There will absolutely be an oversupply of secondary places in Richmond created by the building of the new school.

"Richmond Park Academy is therefore strongly opposed to the new free school and would encourage the committee to take the secondary school out of the development, thus ensuring that the existing supply in secondary schools are used to their capacity which we believe to be a far more cost effective solution."

Representatives of Thomson House primary school argued that they should be allowed to relocate from their two existing, cramped, sites to the land set aside for Livingstone Academy.

Separately, there are concerns about the loss of a sports field to the new school, while there are concerns that it will generate traffic on what are already congested roads.

Councillors voted overwhelmingly in favour of a policy document including support for the new Livingstone Academy. There was one vote against from Green councillor for Mortlake and Barnes Common, Nikki Crookdake, plus two abstentions.

While the committee supported the need for the school in principle, it will still need to go through the planning process alongside the associated housing development on the banks of the Thames.