Two schools in South Bristol have unveiled plans to sell off 28 acres of their playing fields to build houses – and use the money to build a brand new school.
The two Oasis Academies in Hengrove which share an area to the west of the Wells Road, have launched a consultation on the idea, which could see hundreds of new homes built there.
Oasis John Williams Academy and Oasis New Oak Academy share a huge area of land north of New Fosseway Road, but say they don’t really use that much of it. The academy trust and Bristol City Council have now launched a consultation on the idea of the schools disposing of 28 acres of the land to the south and west of their large site.
The land disposed off would include the site of the current Oasis New Oak school, a primary school with just over 200 pupils, and a new school would be built on some of the land that the academies would keep.
It would improve facilities too for Oasis Academy John Williams, a secondary school with up to 900 pupils.
“Parts of this land remain largely unused, and in a condition that renders it unsuitable for team sports – particularly around the southern boundary of the site,” said a spokesperson for Oasis Community Learning.
“The land has been identified as a potential development opportunity, with proceeds from the development to be used to build a brand-new, purpose-built, state-of-the-art school building for Oasis Academy New Oak, with dedicated Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) facilities, a new nursery for 26 children, a teacher training centre, a new park for the community, and better quality sports facilities and pitches for use by both the academies and the local community.
“The development of new housing would also provide much-needed affordable homes for the area,” he added.
Oasis Academy Trust founder Steve Chalke said the land being disposed of was ‘poor condition’. “This development represents a significant opportunity for our schools and our community,” he said.
“Not only will it provide much-needed affordable housing, but it also allows us to use some poor-condition land to deliver a fantastic new school building with greatly increased SEND facilities, a teacher training centre, as well as a desperately needed nursery and brilliant sports facilities,” he added.
It is unclear at this stage on the scale of the development of housing in the area – the consultation launched now is just about the principle of the idea of disposing of the land and building new school facilities. Twenty eight acres is a large plot of land and could see more than 200 new homes, possibly up to 400 depending on the density and the type of new homes built.
There already are new homes being built on a former school site in the same area. In the south east corner of the land, the site of the old New Fosseway School, which has been empty for more than a decade, is to be the site of 130 new homes after the council-owned housing developer Goram Homes won permission earlier this year.
The timescale of the Oasis Academies plan would see permission granted to dispose of the land next year, and a developer signed up to buy the land. Then, by the end of 2026, the new homes and new school would get planning permission, and the new school would be built first – alongside the existing New Oak primary school between 2027 and 2029, with the housing development starting in the south of the site towards the end of 2027.
It would be the third new school project undertaken by Oasis Community Learning in Bristol in the 2020s – and both the first two are proving to be troubled projects.
The new Oasis Daventry Road secondary school is being built on the old playing fields of the former Park School in Knowle West, but that project has been hit by delays and isn’t now expected to open until 2026. The Daventry Road school is currently in temporary classrooms on next to the New Oak site in Hengrove.
And earlier this month, Bristol Live revealed that the Oasis Temple Quarter school development has been hit more delays, and the opening date for that site has been put back another year too, to 2027. That school is already open, with pupils on a temporary site in Bedminster while they wait for the school next to the Feeder Canal to be finished.