A new primary school is being planned near Shinfield to address the emerging shortfall in school places amid significant levels of housebuilding. 

Land at Church Lane and Hyde End Road in Spencer’s Wood could be built on to provide a one-form entry school for up to 210 pupils.

The school would have sports facilities, a hall and play areas, with wider community uses of the space to be considered.

Between Wokingham and Reading, Shinfield was identified in a recent Wokingham Borough Council executive meeting to be facing ‘challenges’ to provide school places to match levels of housebuilding locally.

The south of the borough is facing an ‘emerging shortfall in provision for all age groups’, with a likely shortage in places by 2025, an executive report said.

Speaking about the problems at an executive meeting in September, Councillor Prue Bray said the authority would act ‘as quickly as possible’, with new school places being created as early as next year.

But Wokingham Borough Council says that if the planning application is approved, the scheme would move forward ‘once there is a need for it’.

It comes as Shinfield has seen high levels of development in recent years.

More plans for 3,900 on Hall Farm near Shinfield have been proposed in Wokingham Borough Council’s local plan.

All three ward members for Shinfield – two labour and one conservative – voted against the local plan at a full council meeting in September.

Labour Councillors Andrew Gray and Sarah Bell said that the ward could not cope with more housebuilding without better infrastructure, including schools and health services.

A new secondary school for the south of the Wokingham borough is also being proposed for the area in coming years, as outlined in the local plan.

But Shinfield Parish Council has objected to the plans, arguing that they do not provide safe or sustainable travel routes to the school.

The lower authority has also raised concerns over the parking arrangements on site, as well as the location of the building which is ‘incompatible’ with possible future increases in capacity.

The Wokingham Borough as a whole Wokingham is facing a rising demand for Year 7 places, partially due to migration into the new borough.

There was particularly high international migration between 2021 to 2023.

This has also been brought about by the arrival of peak birth numbers from 2012 and 2013, now aged ready for secondary school.