The future of two Braintree school sites was decided this week.

On Tuesday members of Braintree Council's area planning committee approved three applications by Essex County Council for the Tabor High Middle School site in Panfield Lane and the school's former premises at Bocking Place, in Courtauld Road.

The county is planning to sell the Panfield Lane site for housing development and Bocking Place for flats or office accommodation.

The applications are part of the process which the district council hopes will clear the way for a park on the Triangle site in the town centre.

Welcoming the application, Cllr Elwyn Bishop, said: "This is the culmination of many years struggle between this council and County Hall."

He added that it was a triumph of the local fight to reverse an earlier planning decision which would have given the Triangle site over to housing.

Tabor High School's younger pupils move into a new £4.6m building on its main site in September next year, putting the whole school on one site for the first time.

The Panfield Lane school opened as the Margaret Tabor School in 1937 and was incorporated into Tabor High School in 1971. The 1930s redbrick buildings, which are not listed, are not expected to be retained.

The plans include proposals to set 10 per cent of the 3.2 hectare site over to public open space, while the county council has also agreed to pay £30,000 as a contribution to off site cycleway network provision..

The former Braintree County High School grounds, where school use ceased in 1992, are expected to be turned into a town park, while Bocking Place, the former home of the town's Intermediate, County High and Tabor High schools, will be sold to fund further development at Tabor High.

The two plans offer very different futures for Bocking Place.

The Victorian former home of the Courtauld family has been the headquarters of Essex County Council's field archaeology unit since 1994.

Under the first plan the house would be converted into five flats, while four houses would be built on the site of the school's former science block.

An alternative plan would convert the building to offices, with a two-storey office block on the site of the old labs.

Councillors decided that any development should be subject to a detailed tree survey of the Bocking Place site.

Help should be given to organisations, including the Tabor Centre and HomeStart, they said, who will be made homeless by the Panfield lane development.

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