Officials eye January opening for new King's Lynn school

A new primary school, built close to hundreds of new homes in North Lynn and Gaywood, could open to pupils for the first time next month.

Building work on the £8.5 million Greenpark Academy is now nearing completion, following a two month suspension earlier this year during the first coronavirus lockdown.

And members of Norfolk County Council’s ruling cabinet this week approved plans to transfer the site to a schools trust, with the primary it is replacing coming into the authority’s hands.

The new school has been built on land given to the county council by West Norfolk Council, as part of the development of hundreds of new homes in the Marsh Lane and Lynnsport areas.

A report presented to Monday’s cabinet meeting said: “A new 420 place primary school and nursery has been constructed on the Greenpark Avenue land.

“It was the intention at the time of the original transfer from KLWNBC that this would provide a replacement location for the existing St Edmund’s Academy, on Kilham’s Way, King’s Lynn, operated through Ad Meliora Academy Trust.

“Construction works for the new school are nearing completion and it is proposed that the pupils will move to the new school, called Greenpark Academy, in January 2021.”

Cabinet members approved proposals to transfer the freehold of the Greenpark site to the Ad Meliora Academy Trust, which currently sponsors St Edmund’s, as well as the Reffley Academy and the Blenheim Park Academy at Sculthorpe.

A separate deal to transfer the freehold of the St Edmund’s site to the county council was also approved.

It is set to be refurbished to form a secondary phase of the Fen Rivers Academy, a specialist school for pupils with special educational needs, which is run by the Catch 22 Multi-Academy Trust.

The plan to build the new school was approved in January last year, with the expressed aim that the building would open by the spring of this year.

But construction was halted in April because of the coronavirus crisis.

The project was among more than 30 across the county suspended because of the pandemic, though officials stressed the delay would not mean children were left without school places this autumn.