MP urges ministers to fund school plans

Over the next 10 years ministers want to kick-start the economy through infrastructure investment and Nick Law, head of the Robert Carre Trust, which runs Carre’s Grammar School and Kesteven and Sleaford High School, has already written to Sleaford and North Hykeham MP Dr Caroline Johnson urging her to fight for a share of the millions.

Neither site can easily be expanded and he said some buildings were now looking old and tired, needing more spent on them each year to keep them in reasonable order.

Mr Law said they had secured the option to buy land to the west of the A15 Sleaford bypass, but everything hinged on funding being found for the 1,600-pupil co-educational school with scope to expand to 2,000. The new site would be a 15-minute walk from the town centre, reducing congestion and pollution.

He said with the sale of the existing sites they would need £21m to make up the £30m cost: “It would be great for the town if this could come to fruition.”

Dr Johnson is aware of the project and commented: “This funding could make a big difference, so I have wasted no time in writing to the Education Secretary to ask that some of the £1 billion rebuilding programme funding is used to support Sleaford in getting its new school.”

Mr Law said: “If we get the money it will kick-start the regeneration of Sleaford, with the high school site ideal for housing and Carre’s for retail, while our new sports facilities would be second to none. It would employ a lot of people on the project for a considerable period of time.”