PLANS have been submitted for a two-storey temporary unit at a Barrow primary school while the existing ‘unsafe’ building is demolished and replaced.

The Department for Education has submitted a planning application to Westmorland and Furness Council to remove the existing temporary buildings at Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School and construct a two-storey temporary nursery and junior school building on the playground.

This will allow the school to operate for two years while the existing school is rebuilt using funding from the Department for Education.

The primary school building, on Lumley Street, been closed since January 2023 when inspectors found the ground floor to be unsafe.

Planning documents state: “The building fabric is in a poor to very poor condition with damp, dry rot and mould and fungus on ground and upper floors.

“The building was condemned on safety grounds following the discovery of the damp and dry rot issue.”

According to planning documents the proposed temporary school building located in the school’s playground will be 22.5 metres long,19.7 metres deep, and 8.4 metres high.

There will be ‘sufficient’ outdoor space at the school and play times will be staggered to avoid ‘congestion’ in the playground, plans state.

Plans add due to the number of pupils and the restricted size of the site at Lumley Street, a second building is required to be located at St. Bernards Catholic High School to provide the full requirement for the school.

The school received a ‘good’ Ofsted rating in April despite pupils being forced to leave the site and learn in temporary classrooms from January 2023.

Headteacher Simone Beach previously said everybody had worked together to minimise the impact on the pupils, who have been ‘amazing’ and shown ‘such a lot of resilience’.

Mrs Beach said: “Staff have worked together throughout to ensure that our children have had all the same opportunities and experiences they would have had before the evacuation.

“I can’t deny that it has been challenging and we have asked a lot of our team, but everyone has worked really well together to support the school community and our families.”

This planning application is undergoing public consultation.