A new secondary school and major improvements to another will be approved this week.

The new school for 800 pupils will be built at Burgess Hill on land at West End Farm, Jane Murray Way.

The development would be carried out jointly by West Sussex County Hall and the governors of St Paul's Catholic College in Haywards Heath.

A growing roll of pupils has put pressure on its current base. Numbers have swelled from about 300 in the Sixties to its present intake of 720.

A report to councillors said: "It would provide improved and modern school accommodation and on-site playing fields for St Paul's by relocating this school from its present cramped and constrained site at Oathall Avenue in Haywards Heath.

"The proposed school would accommodate children from Burgess Hill, Haywards Heath and the surrounding area."

St Paul's has one of the smallest playing field areas of any Sussex secondary school and its soccer team cannot play at home.

Much outdoor space has been swallowed by portable buildings providing extra classrooms.

Yet it has continued to perform well in exam league tables.

Road Land near the site of the new school is due to be developed with 435 houses, a leisure centre, doctor's surgery and a new distributor road.

The scheme will go in front of West Sussex Planning Committee tomorrow with a recommendation outline that permission is approved.

The same meeting is also expected to back plans to improve the Hazlewick School at Three Bridges in Crawley.

A scheme to provide new buildings with 17 classrooms for design technology and drama together with a library and an all-weather floodlit sports pitch have been drawn up.

The scheme was to have been paid for by selling surplus land to Tesco which wants to extend its superstore adjoining the school.

But the supermarket giant had planning permission for the extension thrown out last November by Crawley Borough Council.

The county meeting will be told that financing the school improvements was being looked at again but it was not a material consideration in terms of deciding if planning consent should be approved.

A report said that the new teaching block would "refresh" the northern half of the campus giving modern accommodation for teachers and pupils.