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A SCHOOL that was completely destroyed by a fire last summer has been given the green light for a £7m rebuild by Essex County Council.
The funds were rubberstamped at a council cabinet meeting that will see the stricken John Ray Infant School rebuilt bigger than before to cope with growing pupil numbers in the area.
The work, earmarked to cost £7.1 million, could also include an extension of the next door junior school, also in Notley Road, Braintree, at the same time following a consultation with parents.
Sandra Way, head teacher at John Ray Infant School, said: "This is the start of the procurement process, we are very pleased that work can get underway and we're looking forward to working with the company awarded the contract.
"It's an opportunity to extend the school to offer enough places to our community."
The school was gutted by a fire that swept through the building and burned for more than 12 hours in August last year, just days before children were due to return to classes.
The 285 pupils were temporarily housed at Takeley in the former primary school building before moving to temporary buildings on the site of the junior school and nearby Notley High School.
Mrs Way added: "We've coped really well, the rooms are excellent quality and well resourced. As a result teaching and learning has continued at our usual standard."
Councillor Ray Gooding, cabinet member for education and lifelong learning, said at the full cabinet meeting on Tuesday: "In some ways this is good news coming out of a complete disaster, the school burnt down and we were all quite concerned about the future of the school.
"Now we are able to not only build a new school but improve buildings to fit growing needs of the community in the area."
Under these proposals the junior school would also increase to four classes, creating an extra 96 places at the school taking the total to around 480 pupils.
This could see the intake at the infant school increase from three to four classes per year, meaning an extra 30 pupils each year, taking the school total from its current number of 285 to around 360.
During the meeting Cllr Julie Young, leader of the Labour group in Essex County Council, raised concerns about the lack of any definitive detail for a sprinkler system in the new school plans.
She said: "The cost of the new school is a large amount of money so it would only make financial sense to build sprinklers into the new building."
Cllr Michael Mackrory, leader of the Liberal Democrat group in Essex County Council, added: "Why has it taken five months to get these details sorted out when the fire was in August?"
To fund the expansion of both schools Essex County Council will use the Braintree Basic Need allocation within the capital programme and the work will be put out to tender next month.
The council is currently in talks with insurers Zurich to recover the rebuild cost of the school.
