YOUR REACTION: New homes could be built on former Chesterfield school site

Miller Homes plans to build 56 homes on the 4.8 acre site, which will be a mix of two, three, four and five bedroom houses. Most of the houses will be two-storey properties, with four planned to be two-and-a-half storey homes and one a bungalow.

The site, which has been sold by Chesterfield Borough Council and Derbyshire County Council, would be accessed off Newbold Road and covers a rectangular area that is also next to Loundsley Green Road and Newbold Back Lane.

Reacting to the announcement on the Derbyshire Times’ Facebook page, Karen Cole, wrote: “As long as this doesn’t affect Brampton Rovers home ground! However, the council really need to resurface the service road that leads down to the site.”

James Salt posted: “Will these be affordable housing? Unlike the ridiculous £300,000+ houses being built off Newbold Road?”

Adam Törincsi wrote: “When we moved out Newbold, demolition started the next day so why has if taken 10 years to build?”

Holt Mitsubishi posted: “This could go different ways! Let’s wait and see, shall we?”

And Danny Wilson wrote: “They need to build these houses with more than one parking space. How many families have one car. Good size plots is what is needed.”

The land has been vacant since Derbyshire County Council demolished the former Newbold School in 2006. The land is allocated as a site which is suitable for housing, although planning permission will be required before the plans could go ahead.

Miller Homes is intending to carry out initial public consultation with residents in the coming weeks ahead of submitting a formal planning application.

Newbold School, which has since been renamed Outwood Academy Newbold, moved off Newbold Road in 2006 to merge its lower and upper schools on a single site in Highfield Lane.

When a planning application is submitted the council will seek agreement for up to 30 per cent of the properties to be affordable and require Miller Homes to make a Community Infrastructure Levy payment which will contribute to education and open spaces facilities, such as playgrounds, in the borough.

Councillor Terry Gilby, the borough council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for planning, said: “This is an important site in the town and if planning permission is approved then having 56 homes on this site would make an important contribution to the borough’s housing needs.

“It would also deliver that housing on a brownfield site that is already allocated as being suitable for housing, subject to the correct planning permission being in place.”

Councillor Andy Botham, the county council’s cabinet member for council services, said: “This proposal shows how two authorities can work together to provide much-needed affordable housing in Derbyshire.”