PLANS for a new £15m school and community learning centre earmarked for a site in Walthamstow have been finalised, the council says.

A brand new primary school for 630 pupils will be built on the site of the council's adult education centre, in Queens Road.

The school, which is due for completion in April 2011, will replace the smaller Edinburgh Primary School nearby.

The top floor of the building will be used by the council's Community Learning and Skills Service (CLASS), which provides a range of classes for adults.

Cllr Liaquat Ali, the council's cabinet member for children, said having the school and CLASS working together in one building will be a “huge achievement.”

Cllr Geraldine Reardon, cabinet member for culture, said: “By pooling their resources, children and adults alike will benefit from this wonderful service at less overall cost to the borough; it’s a win-win result.”

Three of the four buildings which make up council's education centre are currently being demolished. The other will be refurbished and used as a reception area in the new facility.

The development will provide an extra two forms of entry and the council hopes it will help to ease the crisis over a shortage of school places which is affecting the borough.

The borough needs an extra 3,760 places by 2012 and hundreds of children are currently being taught in temporary classrooms.

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