EastEnders legend Lindsey Coulson has ruled out a future return to the soap for one key reason.

The star, who will debut on Waterloo Road this month as new headteacher Dame Stella Drake, famously played Sonia and Bianca’s mum Carol Jackson on EastEnders.

Last appearing a decade ago, Lindsey said that she had “so many memories” from her time on the soap.

“I was given a long time with great storylines to get better and better and better,” she recalled. “I was lucky enough to get some great stuff. It’s brilliant that it’s been going for 40 years. I’m really proud of having been a part of that.”

However, the star suggested that her character wouldn’t “really want to come back to that Square at all” as she mused over where Carol would be right now.

“Carol – for me, Carol, in my head, she’s done an Open University degree,” Lindsey explained. “She’s reading books on a beach with a really lovely man in her life.

“She doesn’t really want to come back to that Square at all, because she’d only end up working in the café, because you’re not allowed to have any other jobs!”

“So I like that she’s gone off into wherever,” she added. “In my head, she’s really grown as a person and is good. That’s how I feel about Carol.”

Lindsey will soon be swapping Walford for Waterloo Road as Stella, explaining that her new head is “pretty strict” and “old-school”.

“But I think she’s fair,” she elaborated. “She cares passionately about education. She’s probably not somebody you could particularly offer alternative information to at the moment. I think she softens a little through the first season. I hope she softens a little.”

The star revealed that Stella is getting to grips with being at the school as she tries to navigate its “history in terms of murder”, and that she didn’t expect to come back to a mainstream school after being at Ofsted for 15 years.

However, Stella left the government department over a viral video of her talking about parental incompetence, and upon arriving at Waterloo Road, she is “slightly on the backfoot with how schools have changed in that time”.

“She’s not always on top of everything at the moment,” Lindsey added. “I think that’s why she comes across as being a bit strict, and what she says, goes.”