AN INDEPENDENT school’s plans to move to a multi-million pound new site at Wynyard have been abandoned.

Red House School in Norton, near Stockton, bought land at Wynyard and was planning to build a £14m new school there, to allow larger class sizes and improved facilities.

But it has struggled to bridge the funding gap and the school governors have now decided to sell the Wynyard land, stay on the current Norton village site and invest in facilities there instead.

Red House said it was approached by fellow private school Teesside High, in Eaglescliffe, earlier this year to enter talks regarding a merger, but it is understood that parents at the Eaglescliffe school did not approve of the plans.

Teesside High claimed it had received an “unsolicited approach” from Red House.

Just a month later both schools confirmed they would not be pursuing the link-up, and after that the plans for Wynyard were quietly dropped.

Sticking points on the merger were believed to have included deciding where the merged school would be, as Teesside High does not want to move from its current site, and pupil selection.

Ken James, who is the new head at Red House, said: “At some stage we will be selling the land at Wynyard. Really the financial gulf was becoming too much in terms of relocating.

“I have drawn up a masterplan for our current site in Norton and in the coming months and years we will be investing heavily in it. My job at the moment is to talk to parents and children about what they want out of the school and how we make it the best it can possibly be.”

Mr James, born in Durham, has held positions at prestigious private schools in the UK and Australia, including leading Fyling Hall School at Robin Hood’s Bay, near Whitby. More recently he was deputy head of Cranbrook, one of Sydney’s leading independent schools.

He said: “I think Red House is a fantastic little school. I enjoy working in schools which are small enough to know all the pupils and not just by name.”

Work carried out over the summer means the school now has a new astroturf surface on the school grounds for hockey and tennis. Bus services are also being extended to Durham to help attract pupils from further afield, especially since the closure of independent Sunderland High School. Red House is holding an open morning on Saturday, September 24 between 10am and 1pm. Visit www.redhouseschool.co.uk