Planning permission was granted in August 2018 for the construction of a single-storey primary school building and associated boarding house on a greenfield site within the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) to facilitate the relocation of the Mary Hare Primary School providing for profoundly and severely deaf children from its Grade II listed premises in Newbury to the Mary Hare Secondary School site. The proposed development also provided for a new business/conference centre, incorporating an earmould manufacturing facility and an audiology clinic; a hearing aid repair shop and a single storey vocational classroom block for the existing secondary school with associated car park. The instruction was awarded on competitive tender and the proposed development was the subject of a full landscape visual impact assessment which underpinned the landscape integrity of the identified site which was pivotal to securing planning permission in conjunction with the educational need justification.