The Islamic school in Paola will be expanding by 240 students after the planning authority green-lighted a project which includes the building of a new secondary school.

The project, headed by the World Islamic Call Society, will feature the construction of a secondary school, a gym and underground car park.

The new three-storey school will be built behind the existing primary school and will have a footprint of around 1,500 square metres. It will have eight classrooms with 30 students in each.

The car park, which will be built below the building, will be around 5,000 square metres and have 141 spaces.

Besides the new gym, the schoolchildren will also be able to make use of a football pitch, under which there will be an underground reservoir. At present, the site is undeveloped and forms part of a larger complex run by the World Islamic Call Society, which also includes the mosque and a religious residence.

With more than 5,000 people members of the Islamic community in Malta, the need for space was “evident”, project architect Martin De Bono argued. The primary school has around 250 full time students, teachers and staff.

The transport authority requested a traffic impact report and stressed that students were picked up and dropped off inside the school grounds and not on the main road.

One Paola resident expressed concern over the proposed development saying he and his neighbours were often disturbed at night by people who were at the mosque during Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting during the day.

“We have nothing at all against the school but we want peace and quiet for the area,” he said.