Eight projects at seven schools cost £6,421,852. Falkland gets its £4.6m block in October; Thatcham Park's £828,000 early years building opened in July.

Children going back to school across West Berkshire this week are walking into eight building projects that were finished or pushed on over the holidays, with a combined £6,421,852 of named costs.

West Berkshire Council published the list on 1 September. It names each school and what each job cost, which is unusual enough to be worth reading closely: two of the eight are worth more than the other six put together.

Here is every project the council listed, with its own figure.

Bar chart of West Berkshire school building projects by cost, from Falkland Primary at £4.6m down to Victoria Park Nursery fencing at £38,245
Graphic by The Newbury Times. Source: West Berkshire Council, 1 September 2026

The two big ones

Falkland Primary School, Andover Road, Wash Common, Newbury: £4.6m. The council is replacing the school’s eight modular classrooms with a two-storey building, which it says makes better use of the site and frees up more space for play and learning. Over the summer the underfloor heating was completed, essential utilities were installed and internal finishing carried on. The council says the building will be finished in September and in use by pupils in October.

Thatcham Park Early Years, Park Avenue, Thatcham: £828,000. A new early years building for 45 children is complete, and children moved in during July. That one is done.

The other six

  • Brookfields Special School, Sage Road, Tilehurst, accessibility: £690,000. Work to improve access around the school and the suitability of its facilities. Tilehurst is on the Reading side of West Berkshire, about 15 miles from Newbury.
  • Brookfields Special School, expansion groundwork. The car park and garden have been changed ready for a £1.6m expansion in 2027, which will add teaching accommodation.
  • Spurcroft Primary School, Spurcroft Road, Thatcham: £150,000. Specialist early years SEND accommodation for the charity Dingley’s Promise is complete and in use. The netball courts were finished off over the holidays.
  • Burghfield St Mary’s Church of England Primary School, Theale Road, Burghfield: £115,607. The school hall floor is being replaced and the council says the work will soon be complete.
  • Victoria Park Nursery School and Family Hub, Victoria Park, Newbury: £38,245. New safeguarding and security fencing has been installed.
  • Westwood Farm Infant and Junior School, Fullbrook Crescent, Tilehurst: £1.2m budgeted. A feasibility study is under way into extending the school’s Severe Learning Difficulties provision to Key Stage 2, so that support runs unbroken from early years to Year 6. This is a study, not building work: nothing has been built yet.

Councillor Heather Codling, the executive member for children’s services, said the projects “range from brand-new accommodation and school expansions to accessibility improvements, security upgrades and specialist SEND provision”.

What the list actually adds up to

The council did not publish a total, so we added the figures it did publish.

  • £6,421,852 across the six projects with a stated cost that are complete or under way. Falkland’s £4.6m is the whole project cost, not summer-only spend.
  • £2.8m more is flagged but not yet spent: £1.6m for the Brookfields expansion in 2027, and £1.2m budgeted against the Westwood Farm study.
  • £9,221,852 if you count everything named in the release, planned work included.

Two threads run through the list. Five of the eight projects are about special educational needs or early years: the Brookfields accessibility work and its planned expansion, the Spurcroft SEND unit, the Westwood Farm study and the Thatcham Park early years building. And the geography is spread wider than “Newbury schools” suggests. Only two of the seven schools are in Newbury.

What it means for you

If your child is at Falkland Primary, the date to hold is October. The council says the new two-storey block will be complete in September and in use by pupils in October, so any classroom moves at that school should land in the first half of term rather than the start of it.

At Thatcham Park and Spurcroft, the work is finished and in use, so nothing should change from this week.

At Burghfield St Mary’s the hall floor is described as almost done rather than done. If your child’s PE, lunch or assembly arrangements are still temporary in September, that is why.

At Westwood Farm, nothing is being built. A feasibility study means the council is still working out whether and how to extend Severe Learning Difficulties provision to Key Stage 2, so parents weighing places for older children should treat it as an intention with a budget attached, not a commitment.

Anyone wanting to check a specific project can ask the council directly through its complaints and enquiries route, or look for the capital programme papers on the council’s meetings site, where school building spend is approved.

Sources

The totals in this article are our own addition of the figures West Berkshire Council published. The council did not publish a total.

More West Berkshire information: planning applications, council tax bands, bin collection days and parking in Newbury.