Purpose

The County Council has a
statutory duty to provide sufficient school places for all children
who need a place.
 
Slinfold CE Primary School,
close to Horsham, is a 140 place Primary School for
4–11-year-olds incorporating 5 classrooms and a pre-school on
site. Two of the five classrooms are 30-year-old modular classrooms
with significant suitability and condition issues due to the age of
the buildings and are nearing the end of their life. Projections
indicate a continuing need for the pupil places to ensure capacity
for children of primary age in the village and within the wider
locality.
 
In December 2021, the Cabinet
Member for Learning and Skills
approved the allocation of £1.158m funding to replace the
modular classrooms with a two-class extension.  In November 2022, due to project costs increasing,
a change request to increase the budget allocation for the project
by £0.414m to a revised total of £1.670m was approved
by the Assistant Director (Property and Assets) in accordance with
the capital governance process.
 
Since that time unforeseen
delays to the project and inflationary pressures mean that further
increase in budget is required to enable the project to proceed.
Therefore, approval is sought to allocate the required additional
funding.

Decision

The Cabinet Member for Children, Young People
and Learning has approved the allocation of an additional
£0.245m to the budget for the delivery of a permanent two
class extension to Slinfold Primary School, in addition to the
previous increase in funding, bringing the total budget for this
project to £1.915m.