A new city secondary school will cost millions more than first thought - and won’t open for another four years.

Initial plans for the 600-place school, which will be built in fields off Newtown Road in Worcester, were revealed in 2021.

Up until last year, Worcestershire County Council said the school was on track to open in 2026 and reach full capacity by 2030.

Worcester News: The school will be built on land off Newtown RoadThe school will be built on land off Newtown Road (Image: Google Maps)

But a report approved by cabinet said the plan is now for the school to open in September 2028 - with existing secondary schools expected to provide additional Year 7 places until then.

The report says the capital budget for the new school has increased from £50 million to £59.9m, plus an extra £2.6m to help accommodate additional pupils at existing Worcester secondary schools.

It also warns: “This is the lowest current estimate for total capital costs - further increases may be required (subject to cabinet approval) if the costs of mitigations increase beyond this.”

The report says existing schools have been taking additional pupils since September 2022 and are likely to be required to do so until 2028.

The council said it has looked at other interim measures, including transporting pupils to schools in Droitwich, Pershore, Malvern and Upton - but found this would be prohibitively expensive.

It also explored the option of using temporary buildings on the Newtown Road site, but decided the scale of the operation would be both a logistical and a health and safety nightmare for school and construction staff.

Cabinet members heard that following a public consultation held last summer, a planning application is now ready to be submitted to the council as the planning authority.

Plans for the new school have proved controversial, with one headteacher calling them a “waste of money” during a council meeting last year.

But education chief Tracey Onslow has always said there is plenty of evidence of the need for more secondary places in the city.

The latest report says there were fewer than 10 spare Year 7 places across Worcester in autumn 2020, with the number of children entering secondary schools in the city growing every year.