Bosses aim to cope with increasing pupil numbers

Trinity All Saints CE Primary School in Church Street, Bingley, currently has space for 180 pupils but has been admitting more children for the last four years and accommodating some of them in temporary classrooms.

There are presently around 250 pupils at the school but that number is expected to increase to 420 over the next seven years after the annual admission number was increased from 30 to 60 in September 2011.

Bradford Council has now applied to extend the school building to accommodate the extra children and remove the temporary classrooms to create a larger playground.

Councillor David Heseltine (Bingley, Con) said: “The school is very popular and it is bursting at the seams, like all schools in Bingley. We have got to cater for young people in the area and if this school needs to expand to do that I will support them.”

Fellow ward councillor John Pennington (Bingley, Con) said: “It is a good thing the school is expanding because the demand on them these days is phenomenal. And even more so if Bradford Council builds 1,500 houses in the area like it is proposing.

“However, schools can only be extended so far. It seems we are going to need a couple of brand new schools in Bingley before long.”

According to the school’s travel plan, the number of pupils has more than doubled in the last five years, causing traffic problems. A scheme to ease congestion at the start and end of the school day is also included in the plans.

Coun Heseltine said he had been working with the school and parents to resolve some of the traffic issues.

He said: “One of the significant problems is that the school is accessed by a pretty narrow road. A lot of parents and children also live outside the catchment area so they have to drive.”

If the plans are approved, the six classrooms will be built in an extension to the school accessed by a new covered walkway. They are expected to be completed by October 2012. Two full-time posts would be created as a result.