The Education Funding Agency has agreed to foot the bill for Kingston Council’s plans to move adult education and other services from the North Kingston Centre in Richmond Road, earmarked as the site for a new six-form entry secondary free school.

The government agency has also confirmed multi-million funding to build the new school, scheduled to open in September 2015, including furniture, fixtures and equipment.

The new free school is backed by the Kingston Educational Trust (KET) – an alliance between Kingston Council and local schools, Kingston University and Kingston College.

Councillor David Ryder-Mills, Kingston Council’s Lead Member for Schools and Continuing Education, said:

“This is great news. Our proposals to find new homes for the valued services and courses currently in north Kingston will be fully funded by the government. We can look forward now to helping KET progress their plans for the much-needed new school.”

Kingston Council last month unveiled a £1.4million plan to relocate services from the North Kingston centre. Final decisions on where some services will be rehoused will be announced shortly.

For more information go to http://www.kingstoneducationaltrust.org/index.html.