Former school site could be developed with 150 new homes

Reporter: Charlotte Green, Local Democracy Reporter
Date published: 18 November 2020


Council bosses have agreed to sell a former school site in Oldham to a developer who could build up to 150 new homes on the land.

The Kaskenmoor school in Hollinwood, which opened in the mid-1960s was a mixed comprehensive which had capacity for up to 900 students.

It was an amalgamation of Greenhill Grammar School and Hollinwood Secondary Modern School, and was called Kaskenmoor Comprehensive School.

It closed in 2010, and part of the school site was identified as surplus following the completion of the New Bridge and Hollinwood Academy.

Council leader Sean Fielding told a cabinet meeting: “It has been our ambition to see homes developed on the former Kaskenmoor school site down at Hollinwood Junction, which is part of a wider plan to regenerate the area and bring in a mixed use development including leisure and retail businesses too.

“The Kaskenmoor site which is on the south side of Roman Road has been assessed as being able to accommodate up to 150 properties.

“It’s currently unallocated in our LDF (Local Development Framework) but it could accommodate up to 150 two, three and four-bedroom houses which would meet the needs of the local community as determined from the council’s housing strategy.”

He added: “This is agreeing our approach as to how those homes will be delivered on that site.
"It is not a site within the green belt, so these are new homes that are not being proposed on green belt land.

“But it is something that will improve our housing mix in Oldham and we just need to agree a way forward so we can deliver the new homes that we want to see there.”

The preferred option, agreed by cabinet, was to dispose of the Kaskenmoor land to a housebuilder through the existing strategic partnering agreement with the Langtree Group PLC.

The local authority and Langtree have been working together to regenerate the area around Hollinwood Junction since 

The financial details of the disposal were discussed in a private section of the cabinet meeting but have not yet been disclosed publicly.

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