PRESSURE is growing for a new primary and secondary school to be founded south-east of Durham, as thousands of new homes are built around Bowburn and Coxhoe.

In the last few months permission has been granted for more than 500 new houses in Coxhoe – where residents say the primary school and medical centre are already under severe strain.

Neighbouring Bowburn is also expanding fast, with new homes on former industrial sites and green space. A £170m scheme currently being considered by Durham County Council includes another 300 houses.

Such rapid growth has put pressure on both villages’ primary schools and nearby secondary schools.

The area has been without its own comprehensive for decades and parents were furious when, despite believing they had been promised their historic links with Durham Johnston would be protected, their children started missing out on places at Durham City school to others living nearer to the Crossgate Moor campus.

The campaign to found Durham Free School envisaged but it opened in Gilesgate before being closed after just 18 months last Easter.

Earlier this month, the council gave the go-ahead for three new classrooms at Coxhoe Primary, creating 90 extra places from September.

But Stuart Dunn, chairman of Coxhoe Parish Council, said the time had come for a new primary school and secondary school.

“They are turning us from small rural villages into towns. We need an extra primary school and there may be sufficient critical mass for a comprehensive school too.”

Durham City MP Roberta Blackman-Woods said she was afraid the extra school spaces would not be enough to cope in future.

She has raised the issue with the council and has called a surgery on Saturday, February 27 in Coxhoe Village Hall from 10am to 11am and a public meeting in Bowburn Community Centre from 11.30am to 12.30pm.

“It is vital that whilst building more homes in the area, we ensure that we have infrastructure that is needed to underpin new developments,” she said.

However, Sheila Palmerley, the council’s strategic manager for school places and admissions, said the new classrooms agreed for Coxhoe Primary would meet the authority’s “projection for short and medium term needs linked to the planning applications in the area”.

Further, she said there were sufficient places at Ferryhill Business and Enterprise College for Coxhoe (six miles away) and Belmont Community School for Belmont (also six miles away), while adding: “If it becomes apparent that more spaces are needed in the long term then we will take the appropriate action needed to provide them.”