Hove Police Station to become school as changes in Portslade are approved

Hove Police Station is to become a primary school.

It will be a satellite site with junior school classes and will be run by another school and its head teacher and governors.

West Hove Infant School currently runs the Connaught site along the same lines.

The use of the police station was set out at a cabinet meeting this afternoon as the preferred option of Brighton and Hove City Council.

The site is due to be vacated by Sussex Police in the coming months.

A report to councillors said: “There is an immediate and ongoing need for additional school places in the city as a whole. This need is most acute in the west of the city.

“As part of the solution for providing these places, Benfield Junior School was made into a primary school in September 2010.

“This has resulted in a mismatch in the numbers of forms of entry for infant places and junior places.”

The council’s cabinet approved plans to turn St Peter’s Community Infant School, Portslade Infant School and St Nicholas Church of England Junior School into all-through primary schools from September 2013.

Land next to St Peter’s is likely to be bought to allow expansion there.

Some 164 people in Portslade responded to an initial consultation and the vast majority supported the proposed changes.

A further formal consultation is now required by law.

Hove Police Station is intended to take three new classes a year from September 2014.

This should take the same number of children catered for by the extra three infant classes a year now being taught at the Connaught building.