Children on the new estate will have to attend existing schools which will be expanded

Axminster’s massive north-east urban extension will not include a new school, planners have decided.

Despite the site being earmarked for up to 850 more homes, children who live there will have to attend one of the town’s two existing primary existing schools – up to a 20 minute walk away - according to the latest draft masterplan.

Devon County Council, Axminster Community Primary Academy in Stoney Lane and St Mary’s Catholic School in Lyme Road have reached a joint agreement for the expansion of both schools to cater for the increased population and have secured adjacent land to achieve this.

Axminster mayor Jeremy Walden confirmed that plans to build a new school on the extension site had been cancelled.

But he assured residents that money which the housing developers would have provided to pay for it would not be lost to the town.

He said they would still have to pay an infrastructure levy which would go the Local Education Authority and had to be spent on capital provision for existing local schools.

“The money is not lost,” he said.