A new £40 million secondary school is set to be built in Essex.

Plans for the new 1,200-place school at Beaulieu in Chelmsford were approved by the council on Tuesday, 24 January.

The development will be built by Kier, who will begin to draw up detailed designs for the project. Subject to planning processes, work is scheduled to begin in July and be completed by January 2019.

The school will initially provide 900 places for secondary school pupils from September 2019, growing to 1,200 in future years. Together with an adjoining 420-place primary school and 56-place Early Years building, which have already been approved and are set to open for September 2018, it would operate as the county's first all-through school.

-- Advertisement --

Cllr Ray Gooding said: "Chelmsford is growing fast and our projections show the demand for secondary school places is likely to increase significantly in the coming years.

"We will continue to spend the money required to provide the county with the infrastructure it needs to grow and are set to spend a further £230million over the next three years under our latest budget proposals.

"These plans for Beaulieu are particularly exciting as we will be creating the county's first ever all-through school, and I look forward to watching the project develop in the coming months."

(LM/MH)