A new secondary school which will relieve pressure on pupil places in the borough is slated to be the first Passivhaus high school in the country when it opens its doors in September, 2018.

Passivhaus is a design principal that aims for its buildings to have high levels of ventilation, sustainability and low energy bills.

So far fewer than ten primary schools have been built in line with the architectural principle.

The school, which will be built on the Sutton Hospital site, has proved to be controversial with Conservative councillors butting heads with the Liberal Democrat controlled council after they argued that a new school should be built in central Sutton where there would a higher demand for pupil places.

By 2023/24 there will be an expected shortfall of 563 places for Year 7 pupils, with many spaces going to children who live outside the borough.

Kieran Holiday, head of pupil based commissioning, at Sutton Council told residents at the Thursday, January 5 meeting of the Sutton South, Cheam and Belmont local committee that many concerns had been addressed.

It is expected the building will cost £40m with the money being provided from the education funding agency and any shortfall then coming from Government grants held by Sutton Council.

He said: “There have been a number of key issues raised during the consultation, one is around whether the site is in the right location.

“If you draw a circle of three kilometres around the site then 90 per cent of the primary pupils who would attend that school have a Sutton address. There was a concern that, because of its southerly location that there was a chance that we would pull in pupils from Surrey.

“I would say that concern is probably mooted.”

Mr Holiday also added that he wanted to alleviate concerns about traffic and transport control that were raised during the consultation.

He said: “We are looking at about 80 staff parking spaces, we will also make crossing improvements on Brighton Road, Chiltern Road and Cotswold Road and we will encourage those parents who absolutely have to drive to park away from the site and walk down.”

However, Mr Holiday admitted that the 1.6 Hectare site that will have space for 1,275 pupils was ‘constrained’.

He added: “Yes, it is relatively constrained that’s absolutely true. But it’s not unprecedented by any stretch of the imagination.”

But Conservative councillor for Belmont, Jane Pascoe, wanted the school to be redesigned.

She said: “The council is likely to acquire the 2.3 hectare piece of land to the south of the school site. It’s not beyond the wit of man that or the council’s ambition to redesign the school.

“If you revisit something you will end up with a much better design. We redesigned Stanley Park three times before we got what we really wanted and it’s exactly what should happen with this. You should take into account the possibilities and not the restrictions. It should be the political ambition of the council to get this school, or two very good schools, up and running as soon as possible.”

The school, will specialise in the sciences would open in September 2018 and would have links with the planned London Cancer Hub, which will be built around the site.

A planning application for the school was submitted to the council on Wednesday, December 28, 2016.

A decision whether to accept the planning application will be made in mid-March.