A LAKE District boarding school has won permission to install a new timber jetty at its watersports centre on Windermere.

Windermere School, a day and boarding school, lodged plans to install the facility at its private Hodge Howe Water Sports centre on the eastern shore of the lake, off Hodge Howe Road.

It involves the jetty extending into the water by 65ft with a width of 6ft 2in, and a new concrete slipway installed, and permission to dredge an area of 200-metres around the facility to a depth of two metres.

The planning application was lodged by the Patterdale Road school with the Lake District National Park Authority, which gave it the go-ahead.

Planning agents for the school said it would involve the relocation of the jetty as the existing one is too close to where the school launches powerboats.

It also returns the jetty to where it was originally shown on maps dating back to 1912.

The applicants said: “The new location provides a safer, more child-friendly alternative for launching non-powered vessels.”

It would also provide a better launch location as it offered ‘good visibility’ for teaching, said the agents for the school.

The design of the jetty has been kept to a ‘traditional style’ to complement the character and appearance of the lake, they added.

The issue also went before a meeting of South Lakeland District Council’s lake administration committee at a meeting in Kendal on Friday (July 7).

The council owns the lake bed and any structures constructed, replaced or repaired or fixed on it are required approval from SLDC.

Frankie Flanningan, the council’s lake and parking services officer, told the committee there were no ‘boundary’ issues and the plan had received all the necessary official consents.

Windermere Town Council backed the project, which it said would provide improved facilities for school children.

The school must now complete a revised ‘commercial encroachment agreement’ with the council to pass the final hurdle.

Cllr John Holmes, the Conservative councillor for Bowness and Levens, proposed it go-ahead, seconded by Cllr Vicky Hughes, the Liberal Democrat member for Ambleside and Grasmere.