The first new secondary school to be built in Norfolk for decades could cost as much as £70m, it has been revealed.

With thousands of new homes earmarked for Beeston Park to the north of Norwich and at Rackheath, education chiefs say a new 900-place high school is needed in the area.

A site for the school has been identified on land to the north of Green Lane and council bosses are working out how much it would cost - and how it would be paid for.

The matter was discussed at a meeting of the Greater Norwich Growth Board - a partnership made up of Norfolk County Council, Norwich City Council, South Norfolk District Council and Broadland District Council.

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James Wilson, a senior children's services officer at Norfolk County Council, said the new school would be a "major proposition".

He said the county council was keen to work with the growth board to put together the plans for the new school - and how it would be funded.

Isabel Horner, sufficiency delivery manager at Norfolk County Council, said it was probably the 1970s when a new secondary school was last built in Norfolk from scratch.

She said officers had been looking at how much new secondary schools cost in comparable areas.

She said: "Some anecdotal reports have suggested upwards of £70m for a new high school, based on current costs.

"But some are reporting lower than that of the previously supplied figure of £40m, so there is quite a broad range that we are looking at."

Officers said the cost was likely to need to be covered through borrowing, grants and money from the Greater Norwich Growth Board's infrastructure fund.

That fund is made up of money pooled from the Community Infrastructure Levy - a levy imposed on housing developers.

While County Hall officers are not asking for money from the growth board yet, they want to work with the board to develop a major infrastructure bid towards securing the new school.

Thousands of homes are planned for Beeston ParkThousands of homes are planned for Beeston Park (Image: Quinn Estates)

With 4,000 new homes due to be built at Rackheath and 3,000 at Beeston Park - north of Old Catton and Sprowston - three new primary schools are also in the pipeline.