New bus pick-up area proposed for Moate secondary school rebuild
Moate Community School has permission to use the community centre across the road as a set-down and pick-up area for buses, according to new plans.
The move is revealed in further information documents submitted before Christmas in relation to a proposal for a new purpose-built secondary school in Moate.
It would see all current premises barring the St Joseph's building, the oldest on-site, and the one facing the road, knocked as part of a phased construction project to provide new state-of-art accommodation spanning 9,600 square metres for 1,000 students and staff.
Back in late July, Moate Community School Board of Management learned that the local authority wanted more data on aspects of the application to allow a verdict on the project to be announced.
This covered the need for more detail on the visual impact of the development from St Brigid's NS, a protected structure, Active Travel measures for the project and traffic layout outside the school.
It was also asked to address a query about the timeframe for demolition works and construction hours, site boundary treatment and the need to liaise with the department on archaeology.
On December 15, the applicant submitted the further information requested and just days later it was judged to contain “significant additional information” which requires a new site notice and publication of another planning notice before a decision date is announced.
Among the further information submitted includes details of a meeting between the applicants and the Active Travel Team in Westmeath County Council.
It emerged in that meeting that the school “has the permission of Moate Community Development Association to use the Moate Community Centre car park across from the school as a set down and pick up area for buses”.
Also agreed at the meeting was that the school would allow direct access from the greenway to the north of the school through the existing pedestrian gate.
Demolition of the buildings on-site would take place over two separate phases in a six-month timeframe, the applicant also clarified, while an archaeological impact assessment and revised details in terms of fire safety and traffic were also supplied by the applicant.
When details of the new school plan were first revealed, principal Tom Lowry expressed the hope that work would start on the new build in the next academic year, saying that the school had moved to a student cohort of 1,200 – close to 900 secondary and 300 in third-level in recent times. In a letter submitted by the principal with the planning documents, he stated that the Department of Education has set the long-term projected enrolment at 1,000 students and has “sanctioned building works to meet this need”. He spoke of the “significant oversubscription” of applications to the school this year, a position that leaves them only meeting demand for spaces by providing temporary accommodation on-site. “There is no remaining scope, within our school to add further temporary accommodation, nor is it desirable to be reliant on this,” he added in the letter. The construction of the proposed development would be carried out in two phases, and this would “allow for minimal disruption of the normal operations of the school” and minimise the need for additional temporary accommodation buildings, the school said. Existing school buildings would be demolished and construction of a three-storey extension in the first phase, along with PE hall, ESB substation, provision of new temporary accommodation and removal and relocation of existing temporary buildings. In the second element, work would begin on the remaining elements of the extension and decanting of the existing St Joseph’s building or the old boarding school into the new extension.
Moate Community School was first established in 1996 following the amalgamation of the Convent of Mercy Secondary School, the Carmelite College and Moate Vocational School.