A plan to replace an independent school where people were taught for 165 years in Caversham with new homes has been rejected.
Hemdean House School was founded in 1859 as a primary school with a nursery for children aged three to 11.
The site is made up of the original school building, a gatehouse and five ancillary buildings.
The gatehouse on the site is currently occupied by the Playday Nursery, which is a completely separate entity to the closed school.
While the school closed in July 2024, the nursery continues to operate, meaning the site continues to be a place for care and education.
The development company Churchill Living had applied to build 51 retirement apartments, convert the school house into 10 open market flats, and convert the gatehouse into an open market home.
The project was discussed at a Reading Borough Council planning applications committee meeting on June 3.
While principal planning officer Ethne Humphreys acknowledged the project would deliver elderly accommodation and biodiversity net gain, she said: “The adverse impact of granting planning permission would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits.”
Tom Brooks, a parent of two children at the nursery, spoke against the project as well.
He said: “This [the nursery] is a hugely valued local community resource.
“It serves around 50 children, aged three months to five years, and our experience as local parents is, particularly in the central Caversham area, other nurseries are simply full, with waiting lists in excess of a year.
“The nursery makes a crucial contribution to local childcare sufficiency in an area where recent closures and reductions have already limited supply.
“The applicant must demonstrate that there is no need to retain the nursery.”
While he acknowledged that the site has been designated for housing in the council’s Local Plan, he maintained that the nursery should be retained.
Agreeing, cllr Josh Williams (Green, Park) said: “Years ago, my own child was at a nursery which closed overnight on Friday.
“We were just handed letters saying this nursery is closed.
“The impact on approximately 50 families was really huge, all of those families had to find other provision, which of course is scarce.
“That’s a difficult time for families, but that’s an incredibly difficult time for the children who have learnt to trust a location and members of staff where they go every day, where they leave their parents, where they are in that centre of trust and to have that taken away is a very traumatic thing for a child.”
Cllr John Ennis (Labour, Southcote) said: “I do not think the nursery should attempt to justify them being on this land, they shouldn’t feel that they have to justify being there, they are there, get over it, do something that is going to use the nursery and the other parts of the site to work together.
“My advice is, if you’re going to put a planning application back [in], please talk to our planning officers. ”
The project was unanimously rejected by the committee.
You can view the refused application by typing reference PL/26/0138/FUL into the council’s planning portal.
