Troubled academy trust Durand has suffered another blow after a planning application that would have allowed it to expand its boarding school was rejected.
Members of the South Downs National Park Authority’s planning committee yesterday turned down Durand Academy’s application for temporary buildings for 48 students and two teachers at the Durand Academy Boarding School in Midhurst.
It is yet another setback for the trust, which was last month hit by the Education Funding Agency’s decision to withdraw its funding after it refused to comply with demands aimed at reducing potential conflicts of interest.
Durand’s chair of governors and former exeutive head Sir Greg Martin has since accused officials within the Department for Education of “weaponising their powers” to attack his school.
This week’s planning rejection comes three years after the authority rejected a previous application by the school to expand.
Currently, 75 Year 9 and 10 boarders are bused to the school from Stockwell on a Monday, and return home on Friday.
The academy had sought planning permission for five years for extra school places for children in Years 9, 10 and 11, which would have allowed the school to expand its capacity from 87 to 135 students.
‘Unacceptable impact’
According to the planning report, “the temporary nature of the development is proposed as interim measures while longer-term plans for the site are developed by Durand Academy”.
Planning officers recommended the application be refused, saying it would have “an unacceptable landscape impact”.
The report added: “Given the draft stage of the longer-term plans, there is too much uncertainty to sufficiently justify the expansion of the school, the demolition of the Coach House, and to justify the landscape impact when there is no clear indication as to how long-term the temporary accommodation would need to remain.”
A previous application to expand the existing boarding school was refused in December 2013.
TES has approached Durand for a comment.
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