HEREFORDSHIRE Council will commission an environmentally friendly design for a new school in the Golden Valley.

Cabinet members have given the go-ahead for the next stage of replacing Peterchurch primary school.

They’ve agreed to authorise the children and families director to commission an environmentally friendly design within a budget of £300,000.

The school is in a poor state of repair and councillors want the new school to be designed to achieve net zero carbon emissions and obtain a green building certificate.

They want it to have Passivhaus certification. Passivhaus buildings are designed to need little energy to maintain a constant pleasant temperature, due to excellent insulation, air tightness and efficient heat recovery systems.

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Commissioning, procurement and assets cabinet member Gemma Davies said: “I’m delighted we are finally at a stage where we can do a feasibility study.

“I’d like to thank all of the officers on all of the work they’ve done to get it to this stage.

“We’ve had some challenging discussions with cabinet around finance and what is the right thing to do for the school along with the local community.

Children and families cabinet member Felicity Norman said: “We’ve reached this point after a very long discussion over very many years.

“The children and the teachers at this school have really had challenging circumstances.

“It’s in an incredible poor condition and I’m amazingly impressed at how well they’ve managed under these really hard conditions.

“I really hope we get support to take this forward. The forbearance of the school, the head and the children should not be taken advantage of.

“We all know children thrive and do well in good conditions.”