Although Scottish ministers will have the final say, a planning report has recommended approval for a controversial proposal to build a new secondary school near a former landfill site in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire.

Councillors are voting on the plans for the £44m joint campus for St Ambrose High School and Drumpark School.

Campaigners have raised concerns about levels of pollution on the site and the risk of methane gas leaks.

The new campus is part of North Lanarkshire's £250m Schools and Centres 21 programme and would be built on green belt land in Drumpellier Country Park.

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The council is the landowner and the development is contrary to the approved local plan for the area, therefore the application must be referred to the Scottish government for consideration.

However, a special planning hearing has been taking place at which the planning officials, the developer and objectors were given a chance to make representations.

The full council will then vote on the application.

Papers being presented recommend planning permission be approved, subject to 27 conditions.

Now, local residents opposed to the school being built on the Drumpellier site said they hoped ministers would overturn any decision by the council to push forward with the proposals.

But, a spokesman for the Council's Learning and Leisure Services Department said: "Our consultants have carried out several rigorous external ground investigations of the site and confirmed that there are no landfill gas or site contamination implications that would prevent planning permission from being approved."

The council insisted the new building was badly needed due to the poor state of some of the accommodation pupils are currently being taught in.

(BMcC)