Council decides next steps for Chichester primary school that could be relocated

Proposals related to Jessie Younghusband School, on Woodlands Lane, in Chichester, have progressed to a formal consultation, the county council has decided.

The controversial plans, which would see the school relocated to a site on the Minerva Heights development in the West of Chichester to enable the expansion of nearby St Anthony’s Special School, were previously dubbed a ‘cost-cutting quick fix’ by concerned parents unimpressed by the proposals.

Many parents were concerned by the safety issues raised by the proposals. Since many students walk,m cycle or scoot to school and the new site would force them to make the trip along the B2178, parts of which only have a narrow footpath on one side of the carriageway. “I’d feel very unsafe taking children along there. And it floods as well so sometimes it’s just impassable really in winter,” one parent, Hannah, told Sussex World earlier this year.

But now, the council has approved the publication of formal statutory proposals to move Jessie Younghusband to the suggested site, with an opening date expected sometime in September 2025, and expand St Anthony’s Special School into the empty space, allowing it to enrol some 50 extra pupils.

A formal consultation will open on the proposal on April 18, lasting for four weeks

Further notices on the proposals for St Anthony’s School will be published later in the year.

The news comes after an initial consultation on the issue which ran from December of last year to January, and received more than 600 responses, the results of which were scrutinised in detail at a meeting of the County Council’s Children and Young People’s Services Scrutiny Committee.

Members of the public have been invited to voice their opinions during this new proposal, but comments cannot repeat views already expressed during the previous round of consultation. Comments will be published on the day of their submission on the council’s Your Voice web portal.

Members of the public will be able to make further comments by emailing [email protected] when the consultation opens.