Hampshire granted the 420-place Welborne primary school on 18 September. It opens in September 2028 with a single Reception class, and no parent drop-off bays.
Planning permission for the first primary school at Welborne Garden Village was granted on 18 September. Hampshire County Council’s Regulatory Committee considered the application two days earlier, on 16 September, and the county’s own planning register now records the decision as granted.
The school is a two form entry building for 420 pupils aged 4 to 11, with a resource provision for a further 10 pupils. It sits on about two hectares north of Knowle Road and west of the A32 Wickham Road, roughly 2km north of Fareham and 1km east of Knowle.
It will not fill up for years. The officer report is explicit about the opening: “On first opening, the school will admit up to 30 places for Year R.” Every other primary-age child living on the new development will go somewhere else.
Where the older children go
Until the school fills its year groups one at a time, children above Reception age stay with the existing catchment school. The report names it: Orchard Lea Infant and Junior Schools in Fareham.
The catchment for the new school has not been set. The officer report says only that it will “broadly” cover the northern part of the Welborne development area. An update report published for the committee removed the sentence suggesting the school might take pupils from outside that area in its early years, on the grounds that it was not a fair description of local education authority policy.
The school is anticipated to open in September 2028. The village centre next to it is due to open just before, in summer 2028.
No drop-off bays, by design
The most immediate thing for any parent reading this: there are no school drop-off and pick-up bays in the approved scheme, and that is deliberate.
Parents will instead use the general customer and visitor parking bays in the Welborne village centre, or visitor bays elsewhere on the development. The report says that puts them within about a five minute walk of the school gate. Both north-eastern pedestrian entrances lead onto a bollarded road that is closed to everyday through traffic, which the neighbourhood design code requires.
The report sets out why no further drop-off parking was provided:
- to avoid incentivising car use
- to avoid creating an unsafe environment for vulnerable road users
- to avoid discouraging walking and cycling to school
- because additional parking “rarely benefits those that need it most”
- because afternoon pick-up is difficult to manage and uses school staff time
- because air quality around the school frontage would worsen
Parking on site is for staff and bikes:
| Provision | Spaces |
|---|---|
| Cars | 41, including 2 accessible |
| Scooters | 43 |
| Pupil cycles | 42 |
| Staff cycles | 3 |
| Powered two-wheelers | 2 |
Electric vehicle charging is provided for the two accessible bays and two others, and the update report confirms infrastructure for up to four charging points in total.
The travel forecast the approval rests on
The transport statement behind the application predicts how a full school of 420 would travel. It was built from the 2025 schools census for five comparable local schools: Harrison, Whiteley, Uplands, Orchard Lea and Ranvilles.
That is 65.3% of pupils walking and 30.7% arriving by private car. Staff are expected to make around 30 one-way trips each morning and afternoon, with the other 21 of the 51 staff walking or cycling. In total the school is forecast to generate 162 one-way trips in each peak period.
The county highways authority accepted that the local roads can take it. It also noted that this is a new school with no track record, so actual travel patterns will have to be measured once it opens and the travel plan finalised then.
Nobody objected
The application drew no public comment at all. The report records the reason plainly: “No residential properties have been notified by letter as there are none currently located within by 100 metres of the boundary of the site.”
The county still advertised it. A notice went into the public notice register on 1 May, with comments invited until 25 May. Because it is a major development, it was also advertised in the Hampshire Chronicle and the Southern Daily Echo, and three site notices were posted nearby.
Consultees raised no objections either. Active Travel England, Fareham Borough Council, Public Health and the Defence Infrastructure Organisation all responded without objection, some with conditions attached.
Who will run it is still unknown
No academy trust has been appointed. The report says a sponsor is due in autumn 2026, and the update report went further, confirming it is not yet settled whether the school will be an academy at all or a local authority maintained school.
That leaves some basic details open. The school day is expected to run from around 9am to 3.30pm, with staff on site from 7.30am, and the report says wraparound care could stretch it to 8am until 6pm. None of it is fixed until the sponsor is in place.
Eventually the school is forecast to employ 21 teaching and 27 non-teaching staff, plus three more for the resource provision: 51 people.
The conditions attached
Permission comes with conditions, including:
- work must begin within three years of the grant
- construction is limited to 0800 to 1800 Monday to Friday and 0800 to 1500 on Saturday, with none on Sundays or public holidays
- a construction traffic management plan must be approved before any work starts
- an interim school access plan must be approved before the school is occupied, covering access while the rest of Welborne is still being built
- a full school travel plan must be produced and kept running for the life of the development
What it means for you
If you are moving into the first phase of Welborne with a primary-age child, plan on Orchard Lea until at least September 2028, and longer if your child is past Reception when the new school opens. The school fills one year group at a time.
If you already live near Knowle Road or the A32, the construction hours above are the ones to hold the site to, and the construction traffic management plan is the document that will set lorry routes.
And if you are expecting to drive to the school gate in 2028, you will not be able to. The approved scheme has no parent parking. Live disruption on the A32 and the rest of the borough is tracked on our Fareham roadworks and travel page, and the wider Welborne picture is on our Fareham planning news page.
Sources
- Hampshire County Council planning register, application HCC/2026/0210 (P/26/0474/CC), recorded as granted on 18 September 2026. The register requires you to accept a disclaimer before it will show the record.
- Decision report to the Regulatory Committee, 16 September 2026 (PDF), for the site, the phased opening, the travel forecast, the parking table, the staffing, the consultation responses and the conditions.
- Update report for items 6, 7 and 8 (PDF), for the academy status, the charging points and the amended catchment wording.
- Hampshire County Council public notice for the 1 May advertisement and the 25 May comment deadline.
- The minutes of the 16 September meeting had not been published when this was written, so the decision here is taken from the county’s planning register rather than from a minute of the vote.
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