Updates to Almondbury school famed for Tommy Robinson Libel case
The site of the former Almondbury Community School is to be turned into a new SEND school
Plans are being finalised for Almondbury’s new SEND school, built on the “rubble” of a secondary institution once mired in a Tommy Robinson controversy.
Almondbury Community School, formerly Almondbury High, off Fernside Avenue, closed its doors in 2020 due to a poor Ofsted report and low pupil numbers.
A £1.4m demolition project, on behalf of Kirklees Council, saw the site “reduced to rubble” according to locals, who watched the old site be torn down in September 2025.
Prior to its demolition, the high school had gained a national reputation in 2018, after a Syrian teenager sued the English Defence League founder, Tommy Robinson.
Shortly after the video went viral in November 2018, Robinson claimed in two Facebook videos that the victim – a Syrian refugee – was “not innocent”, and that he “violently attacked young English girls in his school”.
In 2021, Robinson was ordered to pay libel damages to the schoolboy, though he was later sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2024 after admitting to contempt of court for repeating false allegations about the same boy in his May 2023 film ‘Silenced’, the BBC reported.
While the debacle was ongoing, the former high school was torn down to make way for a partnership with Woodley School and College.
The new bespoke SEND school is described as a “high-quality building” that will “greatly improve the school’s facilities” and provide space for approximately 180 pupils aged five to 19 with complex autism, according to the council.
The latest updates from the build submitted on August 20, 2026, include ensuring the school’s new kitchens have appropriate drainage systems, secure cycle storage and that the site design achieves a net positive impact on nature compared to its original state.
Once completed, the existing school at Dog Kennel Bank, Huddersfield, will move into the new building at Fernside Avenue in 2027.