and Junior schools today have over 750 pupils, until as recently as 1955 there were no schools in Dorridge, with pupils travelling to Bentley Heath, Hockley Heath, Knowle or Packwood to get an education. In 1955 Dorridge Junior School was built and by 1963 an Infant School was built. These were joined by the Catholic School of St. George and Teresa. The secondary education is mainly provided by Arden School in nearby Knowle, which now also has a sixth form centre. The sixth form buildings were completed in 2007 with additions being made every year. A considerable number of children go to private schools in Solihull, Warwick or Birmingham or to grammar schools in Birmingham or Stratford. Commercial development When coming to Dorridge today, a visitor would be surprised to know that there was significant activity in the area over the last hundred years. In Poplar Road, between the Station and the level crossing at Bentley Heath, a significant goods yard existed. During the 1960s and 1970s the Austin Motor Company used it to deliver up to 600 cars a day for export, via the railway. It has now been replaced with sheltered housing. A brickworks, the Knowle Brick Company, existed off Mill Lane with its own clay pit. The company ceased production in 1969, and whole the site was converted to housing in 1993 by Bloor Homes. The extent of the brickworks and pit site is the same as that now occupied by all the housing accessed via Oakhall Drive. A gasworks was developed on land that has now been developed into flats. Many of the buildings around the area that is now a Conservation Area – Station Approach – date back to around the start of the 20th century or before, though aside from the Forest Court shopping centre and the HSBC bank, now a café, the centre is essentially unchanged from the mid-1950s. In 2008, Sainsbury's revealed that they had purchased a long lease to redevelop the Forest Court shopping centre and also owned part of the Station Approach Conservation Area which they intend to refurbish. An independent local group was formed in 2010 as a focus of opposition to any redevelopment of Forest Court which, it is argued, would be inappropriate in scale for the existing village centre. After some changes to the plans approval was given by Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council, and in the summer