A pioneering bilingual primary school will finally move into its own home next spring.

The move for the Bilingual Primary School to its new purpose-built home at Hove Park will be some 18 months after the original planned opening date following delays.

To cope with the expected influx of 60 new pupils in September, the school has applied for planning permission to build temporary classrooms at their temporary home at Brighton Aldridge Community Academy for the first part of the next school year.

Acting head Laura O’Grady Serrut said the whole school was “really looking forward” to the move, which she promised would be “extremely carefully managed”.

The Bilingual Primary School became the first free school in the city and the first mainstream Anglo-Spanish school in the country when it opened in September 2012.

Several potential locations for the new school were explored including a bingo hall, office buildings, Hove police station and Portslade Town Hall, but the school eventually agreed to move into spare classrooms at BACA under an initial three-year agreement.

This stay will be extended for at least an extra six months while work is carried out to complete the school’s new custom-built building at the former Hove Park Depot in The Droveway.

The school was given the council land on a peppercorn rent on a 125-year-old lease in June last year.

Permission is now being sought from the council for a temporary block at BACA for up to 60 pupils for the next six months to a year.

The single storey, two classroom and six toilets block will take the place of allotment planters and five sapling trees currently at the school.

The Bilingual Primary School is expected to find out by the end of the week how many new pupils they can expect for the 2015/16 academic year but are hopeful of the full allocation of 60 which bringing their total to 260 pupils.

The new school site will have 21 classrooms, a main hall and a small hall, food/science/DT room and open learning spaces.

Mrs O’Grady Serrut said: “It’s such a long process to make sure that the site is ready and there are a lot of things we had to consider including making sure that the badgers were taken care of.

“Moving the school was always going to be difficult and something that will have to be planned very carefully.

“No learning time will be lost, minimising the impact on pupils is our focus.

She added: “Eventually we will be a three form primary school but we want to grow gradually.”