Member Article

Cundall Manor School Begins Work on New Classrooms

A leading North Yorkshire School has begun work on four new classrooms as a ground-breaking ceremony officially opened the site.

Cundall Manor School, based between Thirsk and Ripon, has started the first stage of a 10-year development programme following yesterday’s site opening by the school’s governors, Head Teachers and development partners.

Working with land, property and business consultancy George F. White, who are project managing Cundall Manor’s development from conception to completion, the school was able to successfully secure planning permission from Harrogate Borough Council to build a single storey extension to the Upper School to accommodate four new state-of-the-art classrooms.

Talking about the project, Hunter Hardy, Head of the Architectural Team at George F. White, said: “Our planning and architectural teams joined forces to gain planning consent from the local council on behalf of Cundall Manor so that it could expand and complete the first phase of its long-term development plan. We appointed contractor Tom Willoughby to build, who is following our strategic direction and design concept for the classrooms, constructing exactly what the school desires.”

The classrooms will be home to the school’s flourishing English and drama department.

Sir Thomas Ingilby, Chair of Governors at the leading independent school, said: ‘Planning such an ambitious development project for a school brings with it a number of responsibilities: every building has to be located with consideration and foresight, functional, sensitively designed, pleasing to the eye - and affordable. The architectural and planning teams at George F. White have embraced all of these concepts, and future generations of Cundall Manor pupils will benefit from a first-class education in these new state-of-the-art classrooms.’

George F. White and the school are now looking ahead to the next phase of the development plan and putting in place what’s required to commence the first build stage.

Hunter explained: “We’re now focused on the next phase, the build of the classrooms, and providing specialist advice to our client as they roll out their development plan for the next decade. The UK planning system is experiencing a huge transitional period and, consequently, we’ve noticed a big rise in clients from the education sector who are wanting to expand their facilities to be able to provide the best environment they can for their staff and students. One common need that we’ve identified is that those in this sector, and other sectors, want a ‘one-stop-shop’ service where our team manages their bespoke project from start to finish. We’re at an exciting point in this specific project for Cundall Manor School and we are looking forward to continuing our partnership - it’s been great working together so far.”

For more information about the Cundall Manor School development or any other planning or architectural advice, please contact Hunter Hardy on hunterhardy@georgefwhite.co.uk or 01677 458204.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by George F White .