Work will start this month at Joyce Frankland Academy to rejuvenate facilities, primarily in sport, after a planning appeal was granted.

The Planning Inspectorate has allowed a small strip of land and car park on Bury Water Lane to be used to build 24 homes with access, car and cycle parking, landscaping, drainage and accoustic fencing. The Academy and Anglian Learning Trust sold the land to the Hill Group for £3m.

Interlinked to the homes, the appeal also allows a new multi-use games area to be constructed with floodlights for a range of sports including football and hockey, replacement floodlighting for the existing artificial turf pitch, construction of new fenced courts for tennis and netball, a first floor and side extension to the Wawn sports pavilion, and reconfigured car parking.

Improvements will include an all-weather cricket square, and better changing facilities in the sports centre.

The sports facilities are due to be created over the next 12 months and will be available for residents and community groups to use when not in use by the school.

Work will start with the building of a new car park to the west of the site.

Principal Duncan Roberts said: “With this much-needed investment, the academy intends to regenerate its sporting facilities and make significant improvements to its changing facilities and car parking, including the installation of electric car charging points.

“Our aim is to provide first-class sporting facilities for our pupils which will also serve the local community.”

Kemi Badenoch, MP for Saffron Walden constituency, said: “It is vital that schools have modern sports facilities to enable them to offer exceptional physical education and extracurricular activities.

“I am pleased Joyce Frankland Academy will benefit from this significant investment as part of a project they have worked extensively on to ensure it benefitted not just their pupils but the wider community.”

Rob Hall, deputy managing director at Hill Group said: “We are delighted to work with Joyce Frankland Academy on this important project.”

Uttlesford District Council planning committee refused permission for the application in November 2018.

The planning inspectorate overturned the decision in March this year, after a site visit in October 2019.

Hill Residential Ltd’s application for costs against UDC for refusing planning permission was rejected.