Land that once housed two scandal-hit secondary schools could become Oldham’s newest neighbourhood under plans submitted this week.

Rowland Homes wants to build 149 homes—ranging from two-bedroom flats to four-bedroom detached houses—on the vacant Butterworth Lane site where South Chadderton School and later Collective Spirit School stood. The developer promises new streets, pedestrian-friendly layouts and extensive landscaping, with 21 three-bed and 18 two-bed homes earmarked for affordable rent and a further 21 three-bed houses for discounted sale.

Oldham Council, which re-acquired the land in 2020 after both schools collapsed amid damaging headlines, sold the plot to Rowland Homes in February. Demolition of the old buildings is already complete.

Councillor Elaine Taylor, deputy leader of the council, said: “Oldham is in a housing crisis, and it makes perfect sense to re-use the land, which has been vacant for seven years, for much-needed new homes.”

South Chadderton first hit national news in 2007 when an anonymous teacher’s diary—published as the “anarchy diary”—described pupils attacking staff and one student pouring urine over another. The school later merged with Kaskenmoor to form Oasis Academy Oldham, now rated Good by Ofsted. Collective Spirit took over the buildings in 2013 but closed three years later after Ofsted inspectors found “inadequate” safety and meals so poor that “children were throwing them away and going hungry.”

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