Issue details

The County Council has a statutory duty to provide sufficient school places for all children who need a place.

Increasing provision for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) through the creation of additional places in Special Schools will assist with the aim of enabling children to attend school locally. As a consequence this will reduce the number of children and young people with SEND moving from maintained schools and academies into costly education provision in the Independent and Non-Maintained Special School sector, often at schools not situated in West Sussex. 

Oak Grove College is a secondary special school offering generic SEND provision for children and young people aged between 11 and 19. There is a need to increase the number of places at the College and a feasibility study has been undertaken on the establishment of a satellite provision to Oak Grove on another site owned by the County Council in Worthing. The study has illustrated how the building and site at The Pines, Worthing, if established as a satellite site, could expand the planned places for Oak Grove by up to 60 taking the current planned places from 278 to 338.

Following completion of the feasibility study, capital funding is now required to enable the design work for the project to be progressed to RIBA Stage 4 enabling detailed cost estimates to be produced for scheme delivery.