Planning bid for new 1,300-pupil school building in Offaly

A planning application for a major new secondary school building that would accommodate 1,300 students in Portarlington is about to be submitted to Offaly County Council.

The board of management at Coláiste Íosagáin in Kilmalogue, Portarlington, has this week published a notice of its intention to submit a planning application shortly for a new school to replace its existing facilities.

The project would see the demolition of the existing school and the removal of its temporary buildings. These would be replaced, on a 6.2 hectare site, by a part two-storey and part three-storey school building.

The plans for the new school include 48 general classrooms, 24 specialist teaching rooms, and four special needs classrooms within a 'Special Educational Needs Suite'.

The new school building would have a floor area of 12,646 square metres and would also incorporate a general purpose hall with ancillary PE accommodation, a library, staffroom, administration rooms, toilets and stores.

Some 104 car parking spaces are planned at the school, along with 120 bicycle parking spaces. Seven hard play or multi-use games courts are pencilled in for the site, along with a special educational needs garden and play spaces, activity courtyards, a grass pitch, and roof-mounted solar panels.

The board of the school stated that it was required by Offaly County Council to prepare a Natura Impact Statement, which assesses the ecological impact of the development, and that this would be submitted as part of the planning bid.

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School principal Justin Brown, in a recent letter to incoming students, described the submission of the planning application as "an important milestone" for Coláiste Íosagáin.

"Our determination to get a new building, which is long overdue, is as strong as ever. Our students, staff and local community deserve nothing less," wrote Mr Brown.

"The plans for the new building are very impressive and we are assured that it will be state-of-the-art and a pioneering build. The new build will accommodate 1,300 pupils."

Offaly councillor Eddie Fitzpatrick said the new school would help to cater for a growing population in the wider Portarlington area.

"There's a huge amount of prefabricated units within the school (at present), so it's good to see this project going to planning," said Cllr Fitzpatrick.

"There are over 1,100 students in the school, and it has been very spread out. The new school will be very welcome, and will be more compact.

"The school has the site themselves, it's part of the school grounds, so hopefully it will progress without any major issue. It will certainly help to cater for the growth in the population of the town."