PLANS to build a new £20m flagship academy on Southampton playing fields will go before councillors next month.

The proposals would see the new 900-pupil school built on land opposite the site of a controversial 350- home development on fields between the city and Nursling.

Education bosses hope the new Oasis Academy Lord’s Hill at Five Acres, off Redbridge Lane, will help further boost results at the academy which was last month praised by Ofsted inspectors for its rapid improvement.

Last year’s Year 11 pupils recorded huge 14 percentage point leaps in the proportion leaving with five A* to C grade GCSEs, both with and without maths and English.

• See the planning documents

The academy was formed in September 2008 when Oaklands and Millbrook secondary schools were merged.

Christian charity Oasis Community Learning was brought in by Southampton City Council to run it and the new Mayfield Academy in the east of the city.

Although it initially operated on the two sites, a drop in pupil numbers allowed virtually all operations to be moved to the Oaklands site in Fairisle Road at the start of this academic year.

But it had always been the council’s intention to see the academy move to a purposebuilt facility, with the site next to The Cedar School earmarked for the academy.

Principal Ian Golding said: “A new building will not only allow us to provide an inspirational learning environment for this generation but for generations to come, where everyone has the opportunity to achieve their very best.”

The scheme is being funded by cash from the Government, through a separate pot to Southampton’s £200m Building Schools for the Future bid, which was axed.

Developers Carillion, who are behind the plans, have already begun work on the £15m transformation of Southampton’s other academy, Oasis Academy Mayfield, which will see that school come together under one roof at The Grove in Sholing.

At an exhibition to show off the proposals earlier this year, parents welcomed the state-of-the-art classrooms but many residents said it should be developed on one of the existing sites.

Concerns were also raised at the exhibition for the level of traffic that will use Redbridge Lane – the planned academy’s main access point.

As reported, this week a planning inspector rejected opposition to a 27-acre housing estate on the other side of the road, arguing fears over congestion, pollution and risk to people using Redbridge Lane were unfounded.

The Oasis Lord’s Hill application is expected to go before the council’s planning committee on December 21. If approved, work would start early next year.