Hundreds of children will have access to a new mainstream school incorporating spaces for children with special education needs.

This comes as the council plans to “deliver SEND provision better than we currently do”.

Cabinet members at an Oxfordshire County Council meeting on Tuesday gave the green light to £2.19m funding for a primary school in Didcot.

The school at Didcot Valley Park will cater for 630 pupils and it will offer 12 SEND spaces.

Paid for by Section 106 funding rather than out of the council budget, the school is also set to give support to pupils with Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs.

Oxford Mail: Design for new homes in Valley Park.Design for new homes in Valley Park. (Image: Persimmon)

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It comes as Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission found "widespread and systemic failings" in SEND provision across the county in July last year.

The Didcot Valley Park housing development, where the school will be located, is expected to result in 800 homes being built over the next 17 years.

John Howson, county council cabinet member for children, education and young people's services, said: “This will hopefully allow us to get ahead of the housing.

Oxford Mail: John Howson.John Howson. (Image: Newsquest)

“Our pupil place planning team at the county council is very good at working to make sure that schools are in place and ready when for people first start to move in to homes on new housing developments.”

Councillor Ian Snowdon, of the Didcot West ward in South Oxfordshire, said earlier this year: “Didcot is chronically short of special schools places for SEND needs, allotments, cycle and road infrastructure, and let’s not forget the lack of GP surgeries and dentists.

“They are always promised, never delivered.

"It’s just more and more houses.”

Other councillors claimed the extra 800 homes would overwhelm the roads, schools, and GP and dental surgeries in the area.