A CHRISTIAN free school will have to wait at least another year before moving into its own home.

Plans for the King’s School to move into a custom-built facility have been put back a year with school bosses having to seek consent to stay at their temporary home of Portslade Aldridge Community Academy’s former sixth form.

It had been planned the school, currently with 396 pupils, would have new buildings on the site of West Blatchington Primary School ahead of an opening this September.

A planning application for the Hangleton Way site in Hove has now been submitted with a decision expected in two months, leaving builders with a race against time to have the site ready to accept pupils by spring 2019.

The ecumenical Christian school opened in September 2013 but its home in Portslade High Street is not large enough to allow for expansion.

A 125-year lease at a peppercorn rent was agreed last year to allow the school, sponsored by the Russell Education Trust, to share the 3.8 hectare site with West Blatchington Primary School which will also get a new school.

A previous attempt in 2013 to relocate King’s School on the playing fields of Cardinal Newman and Bhasvic in Hove was withdrawn after it was met by public opposition.

University of Brighton buildings in Edward Street, Patcham Court Farm, Black Rock, the Prestamax House offices in Preston Road, industrial units in Newtown Road, land at the centre of Redhill Close, King Alfred Leisure Centre, King’s House, Hove Depot and Toad’s Hole Valley were all discounted during an extensive search for a suitable site because they were in the wrong location, too small or protected by planning regulations.

Under plans drawn up by the Kier Group and Worthing-based consultants ECE Planning, West Blatchington Primary School will get a new two-storey building while the King’s School building will be three storeys high with 35 general classrooms.

The number of pupils using the site will triple with the primary school able to take in more than 480 pupils and the secondary school and sixth form 1,050 pupils.

The number of employees will increase from 121 to 182 while the building floor space will more than quadruple from around 2,800 square metres to more than 12,000.

Building work will be done in a single phase but with the existing primary school remaining in place until its replacement is built.

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: “The DFE is working closely with the council and the Russell Education Trust to deliver the permanent school site and buildings and to ensure the school has suitable temporary accommodation until these are ready.”