Multi-million pound Stevenage school opens its doors
Following the opening of Stevenage Lonsdale School the old Lonsdale site could be redeveloped for housing - Credit: Archant
A MULTI-MILLION pound school building project has been completed with hundreds of pupils being taught there for the first time.
Marriotts and Lonsdale School has been handed over with some students entering the site by its new entrance in Brittain Way, Stevenage, for the first time today (Monday).
The £43m project was due to be completed by September 2012 but building contractors Balfour Beatty said it was delayed due to wet weather and the complexity of the construction programme.
Building the school means the capacity of Marriotts secondary will almost double in size to 1600 students, who are joined under one roof by up to 84 pupils from Lonsdale, a school for children with special needs.
The development backs on to the old Marriotts site in Telford Avenue which is being demolished, with land in Webb Rise vacated by Lonsdale potentially becoming housing.
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Outline planning permission for 67 homes – 40 per cent of which are likely to be affordable – was approved by members of Stevenage Borough Council last week.
Although schools across Hertfordshire went back at the start of last week, pupils at Marriotts were set work to complete from home prior to the opening last Thursday, with Lonsdale pupils starting today.
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The completion of the Marriotts Lonsdale School follows an Ofsted inspection at Marriotts in February 2012, when the school was given a notice to improve.
Patrick Marshall, headteacher at the school for 10 years, was asked to step down by Hertfordshire County Council, with Geraint Edwards brought in as acting head.
