TWO new all-weather sports pitches will be set up at a Newport school after planning permission was granted.

Newport City Council’s planning committee approved the plans for the new pitches at Bassaleg School on Wednesday, July 7.

The proposals are part of the school’s plans to redevelop the whole school but have been submitted separately while the ongoing issues in the school development application are being worked out to not allow the development to fall behind the planned schedule.

The plans will see two new all-weather 3G pitches, retention of a grass pitch and a multi-use games area (MUGA).

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There had been concerns about the height of the fences on the main 3G pitch which would be cutting into trees on neighbouring gardens. This was remedied by moving the fences and the pitch slightly.

The pitches will also be used by the community outside of school hours. This had led to concerns about increased traffic and noise, but noise assessments showed that there would be a minimal noise increase which would affect the neighbouring residents. The planning officers also explained how the traffic would not be increased as there would be options for public transport due to the location of the pitches as well as car sharing, and the public would not be using the facilities at the same time as the school.

There will be a new car park close to the pitches with 31 spaces. This will be increased to 41 once a small building is demolished, planned to be carried out in 2023.

Tredegar House is close by, and this caused concerns about the impact the development could have on the site, but Cadw raised no objections.

A clean air zone is 50 metres away from the site, and to combat this, the contractors will have to use specific entries to the site and provide times to go through so that the air quality can be monitored.

One of the conditions of the application being granted is that no floodlights will be set up at the pitches. Residents had raised concerns about the use of floodlights and the impact it would have on their properties, however, there was no mention of these in the planning application. The planning officers said that if they wanted to have the floodlights, the school would have to put in another planning application for them.