COUNCILLORS have approved the release of land for a new secondary school in Grays despite warnings that getting planning approval could be a “nightmare”.

At a meeting on Wednesday evening, Thurrock Council’s Cabinet backed the release of Elm Road open space in Grays for a new 900-place secondary school, subject to a public consultation.

The proposed new school, which would be called Thames Park Secondary School, is part of a £58million investment in creating new school places for the borough and the council said it is also part of a strategy to build infrastructure before development.

Ahead of the cabinet’s approval, Labour councillor John Kent of the Grays ward, told the cabinet that while “everyone would like to see the school made” there is a strong possibility it will not get approved.

Speaking at Wednesday’s meeting, he said: “I don’t think we are going to be successful with the school at this site and I say that for a number of reasons. The first is that the local communities will not accept losing their last piece of open space – it is just too valuable and there is too much opposition.

“The second is that once we start getting into the consultation on the planning niceties, it is going to be a nightmare. The streets around the site - partly due to the proximity to Thameside Primary School – are often clogged and it can take up to half an hour just to get out. Throw another 900 pupils and associated staff into that mix and I’ll be surprised if this makes it through planning.

“Thirdly, the site is small and difficult, it’s a six-acre site and government guidelines indicate the building footprint for the school is somewhere in the region of two acres, by the time you add in some sort of playing areas, some parking spaces and access, you are looking at a site that will be pretty tight if you are going to have any open space at all.”

Councillor James Halden, who is responsible for education and health, acknowledged that the school will be challenging.

“We are not a borough-shire, we are more akin to being in the realm of inner-city planning like London is, so we do have to work with very condensed sites and we do have to work very hard to make sure we can deliver them,” he said.

“There will be planning issues and that is why I’m keen to get through this process then we start to flush out these planning issues.”

He stressed that the challenges should not detract from the fact that the new school will bring “900 good or outstanding school places” to the area.

“As we go through the local plan process we keep hearing people ask about infrastructure before expansion, well this is infrastructure, this is heavy duty infrastructure,” he added.