Comments welcomed on proposals for the new primary at a two day exhibition starting Friday in the village hall

Plans for a new Uplyme Primary School will be unveiled at a two-day exhibition, starting on Friday (September 21).

The trustees and teaching staff will be at the Mrs Ethelston’s School to explain the proposals.

The scheme involves building a new School on a site next to the village hall and the social housing development currently under way alongside Lyme Road.

The exhibition takes place between 3pm and 8pm on Friday and 9am and 1pm on Saturday. Refreshments will be served.

The evnt will showcase the proposed scheme on display boards and the children’s ideas for a new school. Members of the school build planning team will be available to answer questions and attendees will be encouraged to complete a feedback form.

A spokesman said: “The existing school falls well short of providing decent facilities for the children of Uplyme, with limited and poor quality teaching space, no school hall for assembly, lunchtimes and wet play, inadequate facilities, no grassed area for outside sports, and issues with subsidence.

“In addition, there are currently six classrooms for seven year groups, meaning that peer groups have to be split.

Trustees’ chairman Neil Pullinger said: “The existing school cannot be improved in situ. The site is too small and there are land stability issues. A major reconfiguration of the existing school would be very expensive and disruptive and would fail to deliver the step-change in facilities that is so badly needed.”

The proposal includes a new two-storey school building incorporating a hall, seven classrooms, administration offices, storage and visitor reception, as well as a grassed area for team sports.

The design and layout have been shaped by planning, transportation and flood risk considerations – and further information will be available at the exhibition.

The school building will be set back from the Guinness housing development and Lyme Road, and will face away from the housing, sympathetic to the needs of the community and designed to complement the village.

The location of the proposed school building has been established following extensive modelling and discussions with the Environment Agency, which has now accepted the principle of the layout.

Now the trustees are preparing an outline planning application for the proposal, which they hope to submit in the next few weeks.

Visual appearance and landscaping will be addressed at the detailed planning stage, but the trustees envisage a high standard of sustainable design and building operations.

The aim is to create a high quality learning environment for children and teachers, they stress.