£9m expansion of Leeds secondary school places backed

Leeds City Academy, in Woodhouse, will take on an extra 60 pupils a year from now on.

The rise will eventually see the school accommodate 1,050 pupils up from its current limit of 750.

It is the latest in a string of school expansions across Leeds, which have been done to cater for the growing number of kids in the city.

The plan had received objections from around two fifths of people who’d been consulted, which mainly centred around fears about the impact of the expansion on surroundings.

Leeds City Council’s deputy leader, Coun Jonathan Pryor, said he shared those concerns, but that the issues would be looked into in more detail at a later stage.

Coun Pryor said: “The school has taken bulges of this size twice already and this would make the expansion permanent.

“It’s clear building work is more expensive now than it has been in recent years because of the state of the economy.

“Luckily as a council we’ve completed the majority of the school expansions we need over the past few years.

“These will be slowing down now, as we’ve completed most of these while it was cheaper to do so.”

Welcoming the news, the deputy leader of the council’s Conservative opposition, Councillor Alan Lamb said: “For a school that’s had a troubled past I’d like to congratulate the school leadership that they’re popular and that they need to do this. It’s really good to see.”

Leeds City Academy will start taking on the extra pupils in September of next year.