PLANS to build a new, enlarged Bolton Muslims Girls School are set to get the go ahead from Town Hall chiefs.

Bolton Council’s Executive is being recommended to give the green light to the plans to increase pupil numbers from 450 to 600 with a Year Seven increase of 30 pupils per year from 2012.

If approved, the school would move from its present premises in Swan Lane, Bolton, to a bigger site to cope with the increase in admission numbers.

Bolton Muslim Girls School has already been earmarked in the first phase of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme — the council’s multi-million pound plan to overhaul secondary education in the borough.

And the council has now identified a site in Quebec Street as the preferred location.

Headteacher MuMubaaruck Ibrahim said: “We have seen an increase in demand for places with two to three girls chasing every available place.

“Our excellent GCSE results in the summer (the school had a 100 per cent pass rate) will only increase that demand. It was always the intention to expand to 600 places when the school became part of the Bolton school family.”

A report to the council’s Executive, which will discuss the proposals on Monday, says: “Opportunities to expand or alter the existing school are very limited due to the physical nature of the existing buildings and the very tight confines of the present site.”

The council held two consultation drop-in sessions in September and October but only one member of the public attended the September session to raise concerns about the Quebec Street site.

The proposals have been supported by pupils, parents and staff with 166 people responding in favour of expansion with 12 objectors.

The main objection was that the proposal “does not encourage integration”.

The school was established in 1987 by the Bolton Muslim Welfare Trust to educate girls in a religious environment.

Phase one of the BSF programme also includes Westhoughton, Ladybridge, Little Lever, Sharples and Smithills secondary schools.

Work on rebuilding or re-modelling the schools is expected to be completed by 2013.