PLANS have been submitted to install lighting at a Launceston school, with the view to alleviating safeguarding concerns.

Management at St Stephens Community Academy say that the current situation in their car park with poor light means there are risks to students and others using the facilities, particularly out of hours and in winter.

In a planning application for the external lighting, the school told Cornwall Council: “St Stephens Community Academy is a primary school serving families across the Launceston area. In addition to providing mainstream teaching, the school has one of Cornwall’s eleven Area Resource Bases (ARB) providing specialist teaching to children with severe learning difficulties. The school has a higher than-average number of pupils with disabilities or special educational needs.

“The main building is a purpose-built, single-storey primary school constructed in the mid-1970s with multiple later additions to the original footprint. The school is bounded to the north by the busy B3254. Other boundaries are shared with dwellings and residential roads.

“The boundaries are partially defined by timber and chain-link fences in various states of dilapidation, offering little to no security to large parts of the school perimeter. The external car park lighting the lower car park is poor and external lighting is missing all together from the higher car park creating safeguarding concerns when the school is being used out of hours and during the darker winter months.

“Other buildings within the grounds comprise a preschool and a Cornwall Council-owned Family Hub. The Family Hub occupies a landlocked position within school grounds and is therefore not accessible directly from the public highway.”

“It is expected to have minimal visual impact on the character or appearance of the school or surrounding neighbourhood. The proposed external car park will tie in visually into the existing streetlighting on the B3254 public highway and Bickford Road, further lowering the visual impact of the installation from these properties.

“In addition to addressing serious security and safeguarding concerns, it is anticipated that the presence of external car park lighting will reduce nuisance to neighbouring properties caused by anti-social behaviour on school grounds.”

The plans are being considered by Cornwall Council’s planning department.