Plans to rebuild Heckmondwike school halted over historic coal mine
The Co-op Academy, Smithies Moor, is due to be rebuilt - though there are concerns about a former coal mine on the land
Plans to demolish and rebuild a Heckmondwike school are moving forward despite initial concerns about a “historic shallow-coal mining site.”
Permission for major refurbishments to The Co-op Academy, Smithies Moor, on Leeds Old Road, in Heckmondwike, was approved last year by Kirklees Council.
The bold project will see the school – which currently takes children aged three to 11 and has a capacity requirement of 236 pupils – demolished and a more modern school built on the same site.
Conditions for parts of a build this scale, such as the ground remediation and stabilisation work, usually need to be met and signed off for the entire site before building can proceed.
However, it was recognised that, because children were still attending the school, the build was to be carried out in stages: Phase 1 would move all the students and staff inside, and only then would the old building be demolished and the rest of the land be finished being fixed up in Phase 2.
New submissions regarding the first phase of the build have now been put to the council (July 30), in the hope that the discovery of a “historic shallow-coal mining site” will not impact the construction.
Conclusions submitted by HEXA to the council regarding the Ground Gas Risk Assessment found that the works “were generally consistent with those anticipated” and despite the “historic shallow mining site”, the risks associated with the identified coal mine workings “have been mitigated”.
The report also concluded that the treated areas were “suitable for the proposed development”.
If the council are happy with the latest submissions, developers Bowmer and Kirkland Ltd will be one step closer to a “bright, robust and durable” new build.
The school’s current three-storey building was built between 1961 and 1970 and used by a secondary school before closing in the 1990s. The school reopened in 1995 as Leeside Community Primary School and was maintained by the local authority.
It was then run as ‘The John Curwen Co-Operative Primary Academy’ from 2015-2019 under the management of a Foundation Trust, until it went into special measures and was taken over by the Co-Operative Academies Trust, the Design and Access Statement on behalf of the applicant explains.