A £10 MILLION plan to move a school four miles has received a major boost.

Councillors have taken the first step towards allowing between 25 and 40 homes to be built on the site of St Paul's RC School in Oathall Avenue, Haywards Heath.

Sale of the land to developers would help pay for the school's proposed move to a 30-acre site near the Triangle leisure centre, Burgess Hill.

The 700 pupils of St Paul's will be taught in new classrooms by 2002 if the scheme goes ahead.

St Paul's says it needs extra space for improved facilities, so moving would be better than spending money on the existing site.

The proposal is with the Department for Education and Employment and a decision will be made soon.

Mid Sussex District Council officers, who need to earmark sites for another 950 homes by 2006, have identified the existing St Paul's site as potentially suitable for 25 to 40 homes.

Councillors considered the idea for the first time in public at a special meeting of the

central plans sub-committee and unanimously agreed it should proceed to the next stage.

It will now be debated by the development plan sub-committee on November 22, with a recommendation the council ask the public for their views.

Coun David King said more homes should be earmarked for the 3.3 hectare site but ward councillors Richard Goddard and Paddy Henry said planning officers had got the number about right.

The central plans sub-committee is also recommending the council puts seven other sites in the Haywards Heath area out for public consultation.

These involve suggestions for 120 to 150 homes at Haywards Heath station; 80 to 90 at Harlands House, Harlands Road; 40 to 50 west of High Street, Cuckfield; 40 to 50 at Hemsleys Nursery, Pease Pottage; 40 to 45 north of Rookery Farm; 25 to 30 at 47 to 53 Boltro Road; and 20 to 25 at former offices in Heath Road.

But the sub-committee is recommending councillors drop the idea of 40 to 50 homes north of Barrington House, Lindfield, and it was evenly split on the issue of 25 to 40 homes around Sunte House.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.