Plans have been submitted to redevelop a West London school by building more than 300 new homes alongside a major refurbishment of the existing site.
Future Academies, a Trust which owns Phoenix Academy by the White City Estate, is hoping to get the green light for the redevelopment as it looks to carry out £40 million worth of upgrades.
The scheme, if approved by Hammersmith and Fulham Council, would see works to the school including a new sports hall, library and music studios.
The plans have, however, drawn concern from the local Wormholt Residents Association due to the proposed scale of the new buildings. Julian Vallis, Treasurer of the group, said residents are “pragmatic in wanting to ensure it’s all in keeping and sensitive to the local area”.
Phoenix Academy is an ‘Outstanding’-rated school in the north of Hammersmith and Fulham. It is a coeducational secondary provision and sixth form consisting of a range of buildings constructed between the 1950s and 2010s. In planning documents it is stated that Future Academies took over the school in 2016.
A maintenance backlog which mainly pre-dates Future Academies’ involvement has built up over the years, with a comprehensive refurbishment estimated to cost between £30m and £40m.
“Without external funding, the Trust is unable to afford the cost of the significant historic backlog in maintenance and building condition issues,” the documents read. “It has been confirmed that there is no external public funding and therefore the school has had to look at its own estate to generate funds.”
The Trust sought public funds from sources including the Department for Education and Hammersmith and Fulham Council but it was unsuccessful. A previous plan for the site was progressed in 2018 before being pulled.
Future Academies instead entered into a contract with developer London Square, with the proposed residential blocks intended to help pay for the wider refurbishment.
The redevelopment would affect the site’s western collection of buildings, which the school has described as “outdated, underused and unsafe”.
The new buildings would consist of four education blocks up to four storeys tall and six residential, up to eight storeys. Of the 307 homes planned, 90 are to be affordable, all of which will be for social rent.
It is the scale of the proposed scheme, however, which most concerns local residents. The Wormholt Residents Association said it ran a survey earlier this year, receiving 88 responses.
They said that 66 per cent of respondents opposed more development, 68 per cent opposed the Phoenix Academy proposals specifically, and that the primary concerns are the potential stress on local resources, disruption from the works, less community space and impacts on their quality of life.
The association also said the area already has a number of schools and adequate capacity if the school fails, meaning there is little local concern on that issue.
Mr Vallis said: “The general consensus from residents is not that the development should be outright stopped but that the development is just too big. Residents would be happy if the development was more in line with the local conservation area’s character, and reduced in height to ~three storeys to be the same height as the existing school building (instead of the eight storeys proposed).
“I want to be clear therefore it’s not a NIMBY [Not In My Back Yard] reaction from residents, but that residents are pragmatic in wanting to ensure it’s all in keeping and sensitive to the local area.”
Future Academies was approached for comment but did not respond by the time of publication.
A spokesperson previously told the LDRS: “Future Academies is working with partners to develop proposals for the improvement of the Phoenix Academy site. Our goal is to deliver improved teaching and recreation spaces for our pupils. We are seeking to ensure that the school’s facilities continue to match the education the school already offers, reflected in our recent ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted grading.
“We look forward to working with local stakeholders to bring these ambitious plans to fruition and delivering a much-needed new school building for our children.”
The plans for Phoenix Academy mirror those approved for Avonmore Primary School and Nursery last year, under which the buildings are to be demolished and replaced with a new state-of-the-art educational facility and flats.
Hammersmith and Fulham Council Cabinet members agreed in 2019 that Avonmore would be the first project in the local authority’s Community Schools Programme. The initiative seeks to use funds from new housing built on school sites to help revitalise some of the borough’s primaries.
