PUPILS who endured freezing temperatures in their classrooms this winter will shiver no longer after their school won permission for a new building.

Chailey School, near Lewes, had to fight to get its proposals approved after neighbours raised concerns.

Its previous plans were rejected last year, but now councillors have agreed a revised set of designs.

Headteacher Helen Key said the current school building in Mill Lane was “unfit for purpose”

She told Lewes District Council’s planning committee:  “We have had no heat to parts of our main building all winter.

“We had temperatures close to freezing in teaching areas and in our main hall and in our canteen.

“Our infrastructure is old. When we replace one part of the heating, something else will break.

“When we replace one part of the electricity network, something else will break.

“We have to source our spare parts secondhand, often from abroad, often that takes months.

“We have got asbestos throughout our building and that compromises what we can do with it.

“In the nearly three years I have been at the school these issues have been constant.

“They have affected the students and they have affected my staff.”

Ms Key added that the repairs had to come from her school budget which was “very tight”.

After the original plans were refused last year, architects made major changes to the designs.

They lowered the height of the new building and moved it farther from the edges of the school site.

But some on the committee said the amendments did not go far enough.

Councillor Graham Amy said: “I have to say I am still very concerned with how close this building is going to be to the neighbours.

“It seems to me that it is basically being done on the cheap. East Sussex County Council haven’t got the money.

“I welcome the fact there is a new school and I give congratulations to the head and the teachers and the pupils for all their hard work.

“But it seems to me, with my O-level in Lego building, that I could have made a square building there that would not upset any of the neighbours.”

Other councillors raised concerns about the impact of the building works on neighbours and on the surrounding area.

Councillor Richard Turner said: “I go past this school on a regular basis and the road is absolute chaos.”