THIS image shows how £5million accommodation blocks at a boarding school could look once built.

As previously reported in The Gazette, Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council has approved plans for the construction of the first phase of pupil accommodation in the grounds of the Grade II-listed Sherfield School.

The project will be delivered for GEMS Education, which runs the independent school in Sherfield-on-Loddon.

Work is due to start next month. Once complete, the building will include a total of 120 double bedrooms, four pupil common rooms and apartments for staff and tutors at the school.

The proposed accommodation blocks will be built in a clearing within a wooded part of the site.

Two identical L-shaped blocks will be linked together to create a new landscaped courtyard.

The building will be connected to the main school by a series of woodland paths.

Steve Loughe, director at BAM Design, which will deliver the project, said: “We are delighted to get planning consent on such a challenging site.

“The team have had to work very hard because the site is of local landscape significance within the grounds of the Grade II-listed historic house in the Sherfield-on-Loddon conservation area.”

BAM Design worked with landscape architects The Landscape Partnership and ecologists PJC Consultancy to secure the planning permission.

A public exhibition detailing plans to expand the school was first held in October 2012, and further exhibitions took place in 2013.