MOTORISTS could face delays around the new Oakley School in Leamington as the final phase of highways work gets underway.
The new £61million school is Warwickshire County Council’s most significant investment ever in a single building and includes a 34-place nursery, 420-place primary and 900-place secondary school with SEND provision.
The school, at Bishop’s Tachbrook, is nearing completion and work began on Monday (March 18) on creating the formal school entrance and upgrading the existing junction at Harbury Lane to give more space to pedestrians and cyclists.
A four-way traffic management scheme has been put in place by WCC and its contractor while this work and other phases is carried out and is anticipated to last until mid-June.
Subsequent works will see road widening and drainage to the east carriageway, a new school vehicle bell mouth entrance, road widening to the west, Oakley Wood Rd/Harbury Lane junction improvement works and, finally, carriageway resurfacing and road markings for a new right hand turn lane which will be done under nighttime road closure.
A WCC spokesperson said: “We are entering the final phase of highways works that will be needed to accommodate the new school and the developments in the local area. It is a hugely exciting prospect for the area with a new all-through school taking in nearly 1,500 local school-aged children from nursery through to the end of secondary. But of course it will need a highway network that can serve such expansion, which we are carrying out.
“There will be some disruption, inevitably, due to the traffic management needed to keep workers, pedestrians and other road users safe. It may cause a slight delay due to the number of traffic movements. However, by doing this, we are able to maintain traffic movements in all directions during the majority of the works.”
