Tetra Tech supported top independent boarding school Feltonfleet School with securing planning permission for a £4.8m scheme featuring three new school buildings in Cobham, Surrey
With a growing community, Feltonfleet School needed to accommodate an increase in pupils, yet the existing building accommodation would not suffice for catering to this enlarged student body.
Consequently, the Trustees of Feltonfleet School appointed Tetra Tech from 2016 to 2017 to support this 7.9ha campus scheme featuring 1,400sqm of floorspace in the Metropolitan Green Belt, Cobham.
The main Listed building replaces the music facility with a fit–for–purpose building featuring a glazed link to the main building. A new Art and Design building was placed close to existing buildings along one axis parallel to the A3 slip road. The final building was a new house for the headteacher, which meant relocating the school’s shooting range.
After seeking pre-application advice from Elmbridge Borough Council, we submitted a combined planning application for all three new buildings.
The site’s Green Belt proved a notable challenge to overcome, given that new buildings there are generally only permissible for a limited range of uses, which do not include education. We justified the scheme on the basis that the separate developments amounted to limited infilling in the Green Belt.
The planning officer did not support the application when reported to the Planning Committee. However, councillors disagreed and in line with the Council’s protocol, the application was reported to the main planning committee and planning permission was granted.
The main work involved the provision of planning consultancy services and we worked with specialist education architects, Walters & Cohen. The design of the new buildings were modernist set within a more historic school setting including the main school building that Grade II listed.
Several other Tetra Tech services helped prepare specialist reports to accompany the planning application submission. These included:
- Ecological surveys
- Heritage Impact Assessment
- Desk Based Archaeological Survey
- Flood Risk Assessment and Drainage Strategy
- Utilities Assessment.
