Plans to merge two Altrincham schools have been approved.

Trafford council’s executive committee unanimously agreed to the amalgamation of Stamford Park Junior School and Stamford Park Infant School, after months of consultation with parents, teachers and staff over a three year period.

But many have expressed ‘disappointment’ that the plans to bring the two schools together no longer include plans to improve the site’s 100-year-old buildings, as was originally proposed.

The original plan had been to ‘discontinue’ Stamford Park Junior School and Stamford Park Infant School and build a new 21-classroom school in their place.

The Edwardian school buildings, where mould was found in classrooms and children are sometimes taught in corridors, were set to be demolished and the new Stamford Park Primary School opened by September 2021.

Now, plans for a brand new school building have had to be temporarily shelved due to the listed nature of the building – any plans need to be worked through with heritage experts.

It is understood proposals for a new school are still ‘in the pipeline’.

Initially, Stamford Park Junior School’s governing body had shown continuing opposition to the plans and the Junior school’s headteacher Cathryn Downing had already rejected two previous offers of up to £8m from Trafford council to build the new school on site.

The infant school’s then headteacher had expressed their support for the plans in summer 2019.

The infant school head position is currently vacant.

But back in October 2019, Mrs Downing confirmed the school was then ‘actively working’ with the authority for the first time.

She said: “While the governing body of Stamford Park Junior School does not consider the council’s proposal to be in the best interests of the junior school pupils and have voted twice to reject the proposal, we are now actively working with the local authority to gain the best possible provision for the juniors within the proposed new build primary school.

“The continuing concerns of the junior school governing body, around the over development of this very restricted school site, have not been addressed in our discussions thus far with Trafford council.”

Previously, Ms Downing had pushed for the junior school to become an academy, which would have meant no local authority involvement whatsoever.

In the summer term of 2019, mould was found in the ageing classrooms of the infant school. The building had to be temporarily closed while air purifiers were installed.

Trafford council said essential repairs to the building would cost £1.2m.

The plan had been for work to begin on both schools by summer 2020 – but the coronavirus pandemic put paid to those proposals.

Council documents stated: “This current proposal does not include any expansion project, refurbishment or new school building. There is ongoing work to consider site options involving a range of partners including education, place development, planning, heritage and strategic parks.”

During the executive meeting where the merger was approved, Coun Karina Carter said: “We did get money, it’s expansion funding to increase the number of places at the school. Obviously the original plan was to build a new school.

“We’ve got about £8m which would have gotten us a decent building. Unfortunately because of the listing it just means that we cannot bring in a building in the envelope now.

“[We’ve] got a team looking at it with heritage experts. We’re told there’s a plan in the pipeline, which we haven’t seen yet. We have every empathy but at the moment our hands are a bit tied. We will keep [people] in the loop.”