A school in Shipston is to get £10m of improvements

More than £10m has been allocated to improving Shipston High School so that it can cope with extra pupils.
Shipston High School, which is to get £10m improvements to increase capacity. Picture by Google StreetviewShipston High School, which is to get £10m improvements to increase capacity. Picture by Google Streetview
Shipston High School, which is to get £10m improvements to increase capacity. Picture by Google Streetview

The funds were agreed at last week’s cabinet meeting of Warwickshire County Council – one of a number of projects added to the education capital programme.

A Department for Education grant will cover £10.023m of the refurbishment with an additional £509,000 coming from developer contributions.

A report to cabinet explained that the school had taken extra students over the past two years but that it was now full.

Shipston High School which is having a new allocation of funds to increase capacityShipston High School which is having a new allocation of funds to increase capacity
Shipston High School which is having a new allocation of funds to increase capacity

It said: “The proposal looks to refurbish and remodel existing buildings, provide a new sports hall and related changing and storage facilities, and convert a pond area to courtyard to provide additional informal hard standing/external teaching areas.

“These works will facilitate a much needed 1FE expansion (150 places). Provision has also been made for additional parking on site.

“The sports hall size is important for teaching PE and for the location of examinations. The school currently lacks the appropriate indoor sports and examination facilities and therefore the provision of the sports hall is essential for them to be able to operate. It is not typical to provide a new sports hall as part of a secondary school expansion and therefore costs will be higher than benchmark comparisons.”

The report warned that the project was still at an early stage of development and was therefore vulnerable to further inflationary price increases although a level of contingency had been included.

Councillors also agreed extra funding for work at Stratford High School after being told that an expansion to cater for an additional 300 pupils was likely to cost an £2.2m over the original £11.573m budget. A report said that this represented a 31 per cent increase in construction costs.

It explained: “There has recently been a significant increase in construction cost inflation with contributing factors such as international conflicts, rising energy prices, HS2, EU exit and to a lesser extent Covid-19 impacting the market.

“This is resulting in both labour and material shortages resulting in higher tendered prices than have been usual in recent years. The likely ongoing impact of HS2 and EU exit over the next few years mean that these pressures are anticipated to continue.”