Green light on the cards for 135 new homes at former Lancaster high school site

An application for the demolition of existing buildings and the redevelopment of the site for residential and community use will be discussed by city councillors at a planning meeting on December 16.

Officers have recommended the plans be approved with various conditions.

The scheme includes 135 affordable houses and apartment blocks, community space, parking, public open space, and two grass football pitches.

Within the housing, proposals include 64 one-bedroom (two-person) units, 46 two-bedroom (four-person) units, 21 three-bedroom (four and five-person) units, and four four-bedroom (seven person) units.

The units within the apartment blocks would be provided as social rented units.

The development would be served by a new priority junction onto Owen Road to accommodate two-way flows of traffic. A new ghost island/lane is proposed in Owen Road to support the new access, with exiting

access onto Mainway to also be redesigned, widened and repositioned slightly.

Parking provision is proposed on-street or within a parking court on the site. Four parking bays would also serve the adjacent Chadwick High School. Cycle and mobility scooter parking forms part of the overall parking allocation.

To complement the housing proposal, the scheme also proposes a community space, including the provision of changing facilities associated with the reinstated playing pitches.

Proposed open space includes the provision of two junior playing pitches to the site frontage, a bespoke equipped play area built into the embankment, a playable street and central square with spill out space externally from the community centre.

These areas will be tied together as part of the wider public realm and landscaping proposals. Aside from the trees already removed as part of the demolition programme, there are further tree losses proposed including a protected tree on the northern boundary. To mitigate tree loses a total of 110 trees are proposed to be planted on the site.

Skerton High was built and opened in 1891, expanded in the late 1930s and later including a large below ground air raid shelter.

The school underwent significant refurbishment and extensions in the late 20th century, and by the 1990s the site was renamed Skerton Community High School.

The school closed on August 31 2014. A small part of the site has remained in education use by Chadwick PRU High School, with the remainder of the school building and playing fields disused and vacant for just under 10 years.

The disused school building and air raid shelter were recently demolished, prior to which Lancaster City Council acquired the site from Lancashire County Council as part of its regeneration ambitions for the Mainway Estate.

The Skerton High School site comprises phase 1 of the masterplan for the estate.

The majority of local bodies consulted on the plans have raised no objections, although Lancaster Civic Vision said that while it applauds the provision of much-needed social housing and the retention of the cherry trees and playing pitches to the front, says it “regretfully sees this as a wasted opportunity for the city council to promote quality design and create a significant development in this prime location”.