But IKB may not be completed by planned date

WORK on plans for the new IKB Primary School set to be built on the Longforth Farm housing estate on the edge of Wellington is

pressing ahead – but the school may not open in September 2019 as hoped.

The multimillion pound IKB school – short for the Isambard Kingdom Brunel – will be in Normandy Row/Lillebonne Way and when fully up and running will have 14 classes and 420 pupils.

The Castle Partnership Trust, made up of The Castle in Taunton and Court Fields School in Wellington, is sponsoring the central government funded school and executive head-teacher Sarah Watson said: “IKB is a really exciting project – primary schools should be fabulous and we want to make this school a wonderful place for children.”

The WWN reported in May last year that IKB had been given the go-ahead, and was timetabled to open next autumn, but the opening may be delayed.

The project is still in the feasibility stage in which the spaces needed, how they will be configured and the characteristics of the site are being considered. Traffic, parking and access, and safeguarding for the children, will also be evaluated before the building work goes out to tender.

Ali Crudgington, business manager at The Castle, said: “The Department for Education told us we would be lucky to get the building in place by September 2019 but we are still hoping it will be.”

She added that it may be possible to open just the infants part of the school at that point or it may be feasible to accelerate construction so the whole building is completed on schedule. Ali last week visited the similarly sized new Northgate Primary School in Bridgwater on a fact-finding trip. She said: “It’s a fantastic building with really lovely facilities. We will have at least that and try to improve on it.”

Sarah added: “We will push as much as we can to get as much as we can for the children of Wellington. We want to make it as lively and attractive environment for the children as we can. We shall try to get everything we possibly can for those children.”

IKB is needed because of the hundreds of new homes that have been built and are planned in the Wellington area. The main

school will sit on a two-and-a-half-acre site with a play area on about an acre of land next to it and initially it will open with a nursery and reception class, pupil numbers building

up with a two-form entry each year.