A planning committee has rejected multi-million pound proposals to rebuild South Hampstead High School. Eight councillors voted against the plans last night, which would have seen the demolition of the Maresfield Gardens school s main building. Jenny Fis

A planning committee has rejected multi-million pound proposals to rebuild South Hampstead High School.

Eight councillors voted against the plans last night, which would have seen the demolition of the Maresfield Gardens school's main building.

Jenny Fisher, a Camden planning officer, recommended the committee reject the scheme and said the academic benefits of the new school would not merit the demolition of the Victorian building. Ms Fisher also described the design as 'bulky, monolithic and out of keeping with others around it."

And despite claims from headteacher Jenny Stephen's that the Victorian building does not meet the needs of the school, councillors voted against the scheme on the grounds the new design was not suitable for a conservation area.

Speaking at the meeting, Fortune Green Cllr Flick Rae said: "However sympathetic most of us are to the aspirations of South Hampstead, the proposed building was never going to sit comfortably in a conservation area.

"And whilst wishing to help the education at the school I don't think I'd be happy seeing the proposed building sitting in Maresfield Gardens."

South Hampstead High School sits just a few hundred feet away from site of the council's proposed academy school in Adelaide Road.

Ms Stephen's said her proposals were 'no more or no less' than put forward by the council for the £30million, 1,150 place academy.