New boarding house accommodation at Bede’s School

The independent school wants to replace existing accommodation at its site in Coldharbour Road, Upper Dicker. Dorms House is described as ‘no longer suitable for what the school needs to offer their students’. The school is looking to construct a new building with modern facilities to accommodate 60 boarders, a house master’s house and house masters’ apartments currently contained within Dorms House. Dorms House would then be re-purposed as a day house at ground floor level, with the first floor converted to offices and ancillary space. An application for the works is due to be discussed by Wealden District Council’s planning committee south on Thursday February 28. The proposed site is currently an open grass space situated between existing buildings to the north, west and south and the lake to the southeast. It has been used as an earth spoil heap for building projects that have taken place over the past decade and has been named ‘Tellytubby land’ due to its undulating nature. Part of the strategy for freeing up the site for development took place over Christmas 2017 with the top soil being removed to be reused on other parts of the school site. This has provided a relatively flat, open site. The new two-storey building would have student boarding rooms, staff accommodation, an atrium, breakout and learning spaces, office, kitchen facilities and storage areas. It would be opposite the two existing boarding houses of Dorter and Camberlot. According to planning officers: “The design of the development has been carefully considered, to create a distinctive building in the school complex, which although contemporary in tonnes, takes visual cues from adjacent blocks. “The building would not dominate the adjacent existing buildings or otherwise adversely impact on the amenities of the neighbouring residents. Landscape and ecological issues have been taken into account appropriately.”