News

Plans to move The Emmbrook School to Arborfield resurface

By Victoria Smith
May 18, 2012

Long-standing plans to relocate The Emmbrook School to Arborfield Garrison could return to the drawing board as the borough accommodates a boom in pupil numbers and its first free school.

Councillor Rob Stanton, executive member for education services, said Wokingham Borough Council is analysing projected pupil numbers and considering how its secondary schools will cope with growth in the future.

The borough will take more than 13,000 new homes over the next 15 years and in the last two years primary schools have experienced a large increase in demand for places, which is expected to filter up to secondary level in the next six years.

Cllr Stanton said the consideration of how secondary schools will be impacted in the future will include another look at whether The Emmbrook School in Emmbrook Road should be relocated to Arborfield Garrison.

He said the new Oakbank free school was also a factor.

Cllr Stanton said: “In light of the West of Wokingham Parents Group setting up a free school we are going to be taking a look at the secondary schools.

“The impact of the new free schools is still to be defined and also with the huge boom in youngsters in primary and infant schools we know we have a ticking time bomb for six years when these children will need to look at secondary school places.

“All options are open at this moment in time.”

The relocation of The Emmbrook School to the south of the borough was first proposed more than seven years ago to provide children in Finchampstead, Barkham and Arborfield with a local secondary.

This relocation was scrapped after a wave of protest from Emmbrook residents.

The moving of the school came back on the agenda when the council rubber-stamped its Core Strategy in 2010, proposing the school be moved to Arborfield Garrison as part of a 3,500 home mini-town.

Governors and school headteacher Nigel Matthias have previously spoken out in favour of a relocation, as the existing site suffers from flooding.

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Most recent user comments 10 of 10

Damiano_Tommassi; my point is that families who live in and around Emmbrook have a choice of other schools nearby to go to, we don’t, so clearly the vast majority won’t be communing to Arborfield!

The council is planning to build thousands of new homes on the Garrison site and also in the Shinfield/Swallowfield area (around 5,000 in total), so I am sure there will be plenty of local demand for schools places in this area alone, which will mean less school-run commuting.

However, I suspect that in addition to a new school in Arborfield and the Oakbank free school, another secondary school will be needed in Wokingham in the long run.

badger44, Farley Hill
21/05/2012 at 09:51

badger44, no-ones arguing against an extra school in Arborfield - it's the idea of moving the school. If it moves from Emm to Arbor, we have exactly the same problem that you've described, only in the opposite direction! (except the Arborfield area is more sparsely populated than Emmbrook, so it'd probably increase congestion/pollution etc.)

Damiano_Tommassi, Wokingham
18/05/2012 at 14:25

Hey graywok

The Holt and Forest are both walking/cycling distance from Emmbrook so those in that area should be okay. While The Holt is regularly oversubscribed, the new acceptance rules are based on distance so those girls living in Emmbrook would probably get in, and The Holt is a higher achieving school. Forest has capacity so no problem there.

And then there’s Crispin, which they plan to expand the number of students by 400 places.

You are clearly unaware of the hundreds of children living to the south and west of the borough who currently have no choice but to commute, either getting a lift or bus six or seven miles each way every day.

Planning a school in Arborfield makes sense from a numbers point of view and will actually reduce traffic.

badger44, Farley Hill
18/05/2012 at 14:07

Can we presume that the playing fields of Embrook school will be retained to provide much needed parkland and sports fields for the Wokingham public. Perhaps we could even see the Wokingham Football Club having a new ground. The one thing that must not happen is yet another green space near the centre of town released for house building.

PoneRana, Wokingham
18/05/2012 at 13:53

Lets move all these extra kids in the Emmbrook area across town at peak times. Anyone seen the traffic now at school times! In the future its going to be gridlocked every day with this sort of planning. Come on WBC - start doing something that raises the quality of life rather than the opposite.

graywok, Woosehill
18/05/2012 at 12:11

Hey Asif.

The problem is potential asset stripping. Our council is continually and consistently selling buildings and land in order to make a quick quid and look good; but what happens when it's all been sold and we need new schools/hospitals/housing? They'd have to build on green belt.

Damiano_Tommassi, Wokingham
18/05/2012 at 11:54

Yeah forget moving it, keep Emmbrook but build another school as well, especially with the downturn meaning less parents can afford private schools. Although Aborfield isn't greenbelt by the way, and since the council spends its money on services for us I dont see what the problem is with them making money out of selling off redundant land.

Asif Ganesh
18/05/2012 at 11:17

WBC still scratching it’s head? We need more school places in Wokingham, particularly to the south and west – it’s not rocket science! The sooner they make a decision and commitment the better for all concerned.

I completely empathise with those families local to The Emmbrook School, but there are a number of alternative schools in that area within easy walking, cycling or bus distance, plus the site does flood regularly and maybe the school shouldn’t have been build there in the first place. What are the chances of WBC wanting to build houses there? Cynical? Moi?

If the MoD are on the move, building on the Garrison site does make sense as it’s in the right location and is brown-field, but this is all many years away, if it happen at all.

With the council’s dithering you can understand why parents wanted to start their own free school.

badger44, Farley Hill
18/05/2012 at 10:57

The school already has flood defences..... The school is too small for the number of pupils attending and has been so for some time Any developer building on the site is heading for trouble as it floods.......

spencer58
18/05/2012 at 10:51

Errm... if we currently have over-crowded classrooms and we're expecting a surge in pupil numbers, how does MOVING a school help? Don't we need EXTRA schools? How about building a new school in the planned Arborfield mini-town that's coming, surely that's the answer?

"Governors and school headteacher Nigel Matthias have previously spoken out in favour of a relocation, as the existing site suffers from flooding." - I went to the Emmbrook for secondary/sixth form education. (Loved it, by the way). It flooded maybe once, and didn't cause any damage or major disruption. Wouldn't some minor flood defenses be cheaper than relocating an entire school?

Oh, hold up... they'd sell the land off wouldn't they; build on some greenbelt in Arborfield and flog the Emmbrook site to developers. Wokingham loses land, someone gains a contract. I forget the council's form.