(Photo by Neil Philips Photography. Courtesy of ISG Pearce Ltd)

Currently St John’s Primary School is split between two sites; the juniors are in Pulteney Road and the infants are in temporary accommodation at St Alphege’s. The need to bring both parts of the school together in a purpose-built building has long been accepted.

Peter Daly, Chairman of the Governors, said that they were meeting to celebrate the opening of the final chapter in building the new school. In doing so they recognised and thanked all those people who had helped in reaching this stage. They also asked for God’s blessing on the work of building the school and on all those who will work on the site.

Mr Daly said that it was almost 8 years since the Department for Education and Science had approved the project for Bath & North East Somerset Council to provide the school at a site in Lymore Avenue by 2004.

"I shall not recount the history of the local authority's failure, despite the efforts of its officers, to meet the legal obligations to provide a site and playing field for our school. Suffice it to say that the Diocese agreed to allow the Governing Body to build here at St Alphege's. However this site is not big enough for both the school buildings and a playing field. The parish of St Alphege came to the rescue by generously agreeing to the demolition of their hall and its replacement by a smaller one to enable an all-weather pitch to be provided by B&NES in place of a playing field. We thank the parish for that support."

"The delay in building the school has had a number of consequences. The original DFES grant of £1.67m has increased to nearly £5m, and the Governing Body's contribution has risen from £250,000 to nearly £500,000. Fortunately for us this sum is being provided by the Diocese, which levies all parishes every year for its school building projects. We therefore thank all those Catholics throughout the Diocese who contribute week-in/week-out through their offerings in the collection plate for their help."

"Since the original approval in 2000 the government has increased the area per child place in schools, so our school will be 10% bigger than originally envisaged. A final consequence is that by starting to build now we are helping the national and local economy at a very difficult time."

The ceremony concluded with Father Tom asking for God's blessing on the enterprise and all who would work on it over the coming 16 months or so.


The excavators move in.



The new parish hall nears completion, October 2009.




Work on the new school well under way, October 2009

Plans of new school and new parish hall
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