St Killian’s College: demolition of buildings part of new school enabling works

Enabling works taking place at the school during the summer holidays will see the demolition of the St Mary’s and St Patrick’s buildings ahead of the new school term in September.

In an online post, the school said:  “As part of our planned construction programme for the new school, the site of these buildings is where the first of the new school buildings are to be constructed, so the enabling works are expected to save us time when we get to the start of the construction stage.”

Construction is expected to commence before end of 2023.

It also stated: “These are exciting times at St Killian’s and it will result in a state of the art accommodation for all of our students and staff as well as being a huge community resource for everyone in the Glens and East Antrim.”

Planning permission was approved for a new school building in May when a  proposal for the construction of a new 9,737 sq metre building and demolition of existing school buildings was given the go-ahead by Mid and East Antrim Borough Council’s Planning Committee.

Council officer Henry McAlister told the committee that the proposed redevelopment involves a new building attached to the existing listed Garron Tower, the ground floor of which will be refurbished.

“The proposed lay-out includes a phased development to allow the school to operate to remain open with main demolition works to take place during  school holidays,” he explained

“The new buildings are generally to be located on the established built footprint of the existing site with a mix of two and three storey buildings over split levels.”

Lucy Ashe, of Hamilton Architects, said: “The two listed buildings, the chapel and Garron Tower are retained. The Garron Tower is partially demolished. That would be the late extensions that have been added to the listed building, so the Garron Tower partially demolished back to the listed building extent and there will be a new-build building on site combining all of those separate blocks into one build and the Garron Tower ground floor will consist of sixth form accommodation that will be refurbished to suit. There is no connection between the new build and the listed building, Garron Tower.”

She went on to say that a “phasing plan” will be put in place to address students decanting from the existing blocks and the phasing of the new build will be designed to suit that.”

Michelle Weir, Local Democracy Reporter