The UK is busy replacing or radically rebuilding every school in the country – 3,500 secondary schools, and 8,500 primary schools – over the next 15 years.

Many will be new foundations, to meet population growth, especially in the South East.

London First estimates that London alone will need 110 additional schools to meet the needs of the capital's 750,000 extra residents expected during the period.

School buildings are increasingly seen as a community resource, not just serving to educate children but providing life-long learning resources for all as well as facilities for sport, performance and social activity year-round.

Sustainable community schools would be located at the heart of their catchment area, with most of their children able to walk to school – 10 minutes or 800 metres.

Because of difficulties in finding land for the playgrounds and fields normally provided, many schools are now located peripherally to their communities, generating heavy traffic to ferry children to and from school.

The opportunity now arises to locate new schools or relocate school buildings to be replaced, putting them at the heart of their communities. This, however, implies that they move to commercially more-valuable sites than they currently use, sites probably unaffordable in normal budget terms.

The change that could make this approach affordable also addresses the acute shortage of school sites for new foundations – compact schools in mixed-use development. The tradition of low, sprawling school buildings, set in fields, is not compatible with a sustainable approach. Compact primary schools can be housed on six-levels on a half-acre of ground, or occupy the ground level below housing or other community facilities, or sit above or wrap around the blank walls of shopping centres.

Hamden Gurney School, off London's Edgware Road, is a pioneering example of a ‘vertical school', and Ballymore is to build a primary school in the lower levels of a residential tower in Docklands. Multiple play-decks replace playgrounds, providing covered outdoor space suited to each age group. And vertical schools help combat childhood obesity. Secondary schools can be built over four or more levels without functional problems. Their libraries can be public libraries and their sport halls a 365-day resource for the public.

Schools could be built above supermarkets, as homes often are today. Parental trips with children could then do double duty as shopping trips.

Sports space for secondary schools may not be practicable at the compact school site, but moving children in groups to playing fields is less of an issue than mass commuting to a perimeter school site. All-weather sports areas can be combined with parking structures or retail rooftops beside the school. An adjacent commercial health club can provide school facilities during school hours. Schools on high streets would be a powerful regenerator of communities. They would reinforce patterns of visiting shops and keep local centres vibrant. And use of the school by adults after hours would be more likely than on remote sites.

Health centres could be located similarly, increasing accessibility and stimulating retail and community activity. Crèche/day nursery facilities for working parents can be provided on the same principle, close to home, and to public transport to work. Where mixed-use development is being considered in a neighbourhood, the provision of a school may be a better Section 106 concept than, say, affordable homes. Zero-carbon schools have a complementary energy need to housing, needing power and heating/cooling at different hours to homes. They can share local services provided for districts or for retail complexes.

Housing for teachers is a pressing part of the affordability problem. Key worker housing has already been combined with school development, with flats above classrooms, separately accessed.

Taken together, the factors encouraging the relocation of schools to central neighbourhood sites, in compact form, make a powerful case for them to be used as catalysts for urban regeneration. This should be a tool in the armoury of all local authorities.

Richard Saxon is a consultant for the built environment