Cobham Free School’s (CFS) senior department has finally found a larger site, but not in Cobham.

Home for the next two years will be Hurst Park School in West Molesey, after councillors rejected the idea of portable classrooms to expand the current Cobham site.

Michaela Khatib, executive head, said: “It is a little drive from Cobham but still within about 20 minutes, and obviously there are huge advantages of it being a school already with all the facilities that we will need. We are currently looking at the best way for children to get to the school.”

Mrs Khatib said plans were in the pipeline for a permanent site that  would be in Cobham.

She said: “We are the Cobham Free School.”

Alistair Mann, chairman of governors at St Andrew’s Primary School, Cobham, said: “This has been worrying Cobham families, including some of our parent group who were offered a place for September, so we are pleased that Surrey County Council is offering this temporary solution, albeit out of the Cobham area.

“We will have to wait to assess the CFS permanent solution ‘in the Cobham area’ when they apply for planning permission.”

The school had previously planned to build a permanent senior school building at Chippings Farm, Portsmouth Road, but this fell flat as developers pulled out last May.

It was then decided the site would be built at St Andrew’s Primary School, but the idea was scrapped in August 2014.

Primary and secondary students had been forced to share the small site in Portsmouth Road.

Sue Kilpatrick, chairman of the Cobham and Downside Residents’ Association, said: “I have no concerns about the free school, our concerns have always been about where it is.

“So if they’ve managed to secure somewhere for their secondary school for the next few years that’s good.

“The question then arises, what will they be doing after that?”

This week the school thanked Surrey County Council and the Education Funding Agency after it “stepped in to help it find a base”.

Current occupier Hurst Park Primary School is relocating to a new school site in Hurst Road.

CFS opened in 2012 and had considered expanding to a site in East Molesey setting up a new three or four form mixed-sex secondary school in September 2017, but this was turned down.

Presently based at the old police station, it opened as part of the Government’s free school programme in 2012 and expanded to include a senior department in 2014.