ONE of Oxfordshire’s biggest secondary schools is set to refurbish its sixth form building.

King’s Alfred’s Academy in Wantage was hoping to start work in the coming weeks, but construction is now unlikely to start until November 7 at the earliest.

That is the target date for the district council to decide whether to give the go-ahead, after the county council lodged an ‘interim objection’ on traffic grounds.

Work at the Wantage school is expected to take up to a year to complete.

Current sixth formers have been moved to a different site ahead of the expected work.

Discussing the proposals, new headteacher Rick Holroyd said: “We have a really large, thriving sixth form - our students do exceptionally well.

“This year, again, our outcomes were the best in Oxfordshire.”

He continued: “They [the students] deserve perhaps better facilities than they have enjoyed. At the moment, the sixth form has moved out onto centre site and they are going to have a complete refurbishment of their area, with a new social and study area, enhanced IT and some additional small teaching space.

“I think that will give us the facilities that our sixth formers deserve.”

The school had hoped that work on the refurbishment, which is of the existing sixth form, could start during half term and have minimal impact on traffic.

An artist’s impression of the new build shows moody lighting and modern internal decor at the Sixth Form Centre.

But concerns have been raised about the possible implications for local drivers.

Commenting on the application, the campaign manager at the Wantage and Grove Campaign Group, Julie Mabberley, said: “No mention is made of the traffic levels currently using the access to the leisure centre and no volume of that traffic has been included in the calculations.

“As the school has access to some of the facilities during school hours, many people who use the facilities do so before and after school hours and will be competing with the construction traffic.”

Citing a previous development in the area, she continued: “When the retirement flats were being built on Church Street. the number of vans parked in the Beacon car park was significant and meant that it was often difficult to park there for normal activities during the day.

“We believe that parking facilities should be made available on site for the construction workers and access to the Beacon Car park should be restricted.

“Since the barriers were introduced to the leisure centre car park, the amount of available parking has already been restricted - the school should not be allowed to make this worse.”