The Meopham School Expansion

Welcome to our overview pages to view plans for our future expansion.

As you may be aware, we submitted a planning application for a 2 Form of Entry expansion to Meopham School in March 2021. That planning application attracted several representations from the local community, and clear concern was raised about the impact of the proposal on Highways.

This scheme was withdrawn in June 2021, to enable the design team to review all of the feedback in detail and develop an improved proposal based on the feedback from the local community.

The scheme presented on this page represents a substantially improved proposal which, crucially, now includes a new dedicated school car park area with a drop-off and pick-up facility that will significantly reduce the impact of the proposal on the local highway network.

Important: The proposed new building itself has not changed.

The new drop-off and pick-up facility will provide space for parents to park on-site, away from Wrotham Road and the local streets. The car park has been designed with a ‘fast-track’ drop-off lane for use in the mornings, and standard parking bays to allow parents to park up and wait at the end of the school day. This facility will also provide additional parking for the doctors' surgery, nursery and library.

The internal road layout will be upgraded to improve the circulation of traffic. Upon entering the site, the carriageway will be widened to two lanes to separate traffic using the new drop-off and pick-up facility and traffic accessing the library, medical centre, nursery and leisure centre. Priority will be given to traffic entering the site, with traffic exiting the new drop-off and pick-up facility being required to give way. Signage and road markings will be improved to guide drivers through the site.

A new bus-only zone will be created so that buses are separated from other traffic and do not block vehicles when they are stopped. All car parking currently situated in the proposed bus-only zone will be relocated so none is lost.

As shown in the previous scheme, a new staff car park will be provided close to the existing school building.

A new car park management plan has been created by specialist transport consultants to assist the school in managing the new access and parking arrangements. The school will be enforcing this management plan on school staff, children, and parents.

In conclusion, the addition of this newly dedicated car park with a drop-off/pick-up facility will have significant benefits for all users of the site and the surrounding area. It will help to ease congestion at school start and finish times. It will help discourage parents from parking away from the school site, and instead use the new safe and conveniently located new car park. It will help discourage parents from using the parking bays in front of the medical centre, nursery, and library, which in turn improves the overall capacity during pick-up/drop-off times. Overall, the new car park and amended access arrangements will improve the parking and highways situation in this part of Meopham.