NEW houses could be built in Shaftesbury on the former first school site.

Forty per cent of the 47 homes planned for the site on Mampitts Lane are earmarked for affordable housing. The site has been sold by Wimborne estate agent Savills on behalf of joint owners Dorset County Council and the Salisbury Diocesan Board of Education.

Money raised from the sale is set to be invested in the town’s new primary school on Wincombe Lane. Planning permission was granted in June, subject to a section 106 agreement. Savills agent Paul Spong said the sale indicated that many house builders felt the worst of the decline in the housing market had passed.