A SCHOOL campus will be built after a three-year row that included High Court action, it was confirmed yesterday.

The £26m campus for 1,600 students in Consett, County Durham, is now due to open within two years.

And a new sports centre, complete with 25m swimming pool, will also be built next door at Belle Vue, replacing the town’s present outdated facilities.

Yesterday Durham County Council’s planning committee overwhelmingly voted in favour of building the new campus for Consett Academy – formed by the merger of two of the town’s schools and now operating on split sites – on land at Belle Vue, despite claims from opponents that the site was contaminated by asbestos and other waste from its time as an industrial tip.

Coun Claire Vasey, cabinet member for children and young people’s services, who has fought for the campus to be built at Belle Vue despite fierce opposition including a legal challenge by residents attempting to obtain village green status, said: “We expect the new campus to be ready for the first intake of students by Easter 2015.”

But she attacked the “party politics which have delayed this project for the wrong reasons”.

Liberal Democrat county councillor Owen Temple, and former Derwentside district council leader Alex Watson, a Labour politician, both spoke out passionately against the project at yesterday’s planning committee.

Coun Temple said the Belle Vue site was an “accident blackspot, a threat to children’s health and the potential for a building disaster”.

And Mr Watson added: “To approve this application is to put children’s lives at risk. ”

But the committee was assured by county council officers that any potential danger from mineworking or hazardous materials including asbestos had been thoroughly examined and remedial work would be carried out to ensure the site was safe.

Committee member Dennis Southwell said the foundations planned were “better than Durham Castle and added: “I have every confidence in our officers.”

County councillor Clive Robson said: “This is an excellent day for Consett.”