Tolworth Girls’ School: Major Planning Application Submitted
A planning application has been submitted for a £15 million educational redevelopment at Tolworth Girls’ School, together with an outline application for enabling residential development. LAA have put their combined educational and residential masterplanning expertise to good use to deliver a holistic scheme for the whole 14 acre site.
The school have been working with LAA and Gleeson Developments Ltd for the past three years to develop a scheme to sell an area of unused ‘contaminated’ land for housing, with all the proceeds funding new buildings and sports facilities for the school.
LAA developed a masterplan for the whole school campus which includes new build and refurbishment to deliver a state of the art school for the 21st century.
The phase 1 building provides improved catering for the school with new dining room and external dining terrace. Additional teaching space for food technology, science, IT and Business Studies is provided on the first floor, while the top floor delivers an attractive, bespoke sixth form centre including study areas, social space and a stunning balcony area with far reaching views.
The phase 2 building delivers an attractive new pupil entrance, flexible performing arts theatre/lecture space with retractable seating for 250 people, performing arts teaching space, dance studio, music classrooms, music recording studio, ensemble rooms and practice rooms, library, media studies suite, 12 English classrooms, faculty resource bases and an enlarged inclusion department.
Both new buildings have been carefully designed to enhance and knit together the existing campus – with a series of brick cloisters, link walkways and landscaped courtyard spaces including outdoor performance and dining areas. The scheme provides a new pupil plaza at the front of the site with a bus stop and visitor parking, a new high specification floodlit multiuse games area, improved sports provisions, cycle store and social space for pupils.
The outline residential scheme delivers 106 new homes in a high quality, sustainable, contemporary design. A comprehensive design code has been developed as part of the pre-application process.
The school are hoping for a planning decision by the end of 2014, with phase 1 starting on site next summer.