An expansion is on the cards for a Leicestershire primary school. Hugglescote Community Primary School looks set to be getting a new building to help meet growing pupil numbers.

The school has space for 525 pupils, with 468 currently on its register. However, Leicestershire County Council as the local education authority believes it will have a deficit of spaces for local children by January next year, in part due to new housing developments in the area.

The authority said it needs to increased capacity by 105 places, to 630, by that that time. To do so, it has proposed a new teaching block be built in the school's grounds.

The single storey building would be built on an area which is comprises part of the playground and a covered reading area. These would be relocated to the south of the new block.

The new teaching space would have three classrooms in it. Four new parking spaces are also proposed at the school.

The scheme is set to be debated at a meeting of the authority's Development Control and Regulatory Board. Leicestershire County Council's planning department has advised councillors to approve the scheme.

However, some in the local community have raised concerns, particularly around the impact on the surrounding roads. Among them are Hugglescote and Donington le Heath Parish Council which said parking currently occurs all along the highway, causing obstructions and hazards to other vehicles and pedestrians, and added it was concerned about increased traffic locally.

Leicestershire County Council is also the local highways authority. Officers in the highways team ruled the impact on the road network would "not be unacceptable" or "severe".

The department expected there would be an additional 78 journeys per school day, taking into account both pick-up and drop-off, as some of the additional pupils would travel in other ways. They said Hugglescote crossroads "has sufficient capacity" to cope with the extra traffic.

However, the department did suggest signal improvements be made to the crossroads to help lessen any impact. It added the surrounding roads have "spare capacity" to cope with the increased in parking on them.

Councillors will meet later this week to debate the scheme and to determine whether it should be approved or rejected.