Ministers announce £150m for school rebuilding programme

Campsmount School which is ready to be populated by pupils after the Easter break

The region is set to get around £150m spent on 22 schools in the latest round of Priority School Building Programme (PSBP) funding.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said today that around £2bn will be invested in rebuilding or refurbishing buildings in the worst condition at 277 schools across England.

There are 260 schools are already included under the first phase of the programme, with 36 across Yorkshire.

Now schools including Walkley Primary, in Sheffield, Guiseley School and Badger Hill Primary, in York, are among the 22 getting funding in the next wave of building work announced this morning.

The Government said that the PSBP was seeing schools being rebuilt faster and cheaper than those built under Labour’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) scheme. The coalition controversially axed the BSF programme after taking office in 2010.

It led to school rebuilding programmes being shelved in six areas of Yorkshire: Bradford, Doncaster, Kirklees, North East Lincolnshire, Rotherham and Wakefield.

One of the schools affected by the BSF cut has also been central to the PSBP work which replaced it.

Campsmount Technology College in Doncaster was destroyed by a fire in 2009 and had been due to be rebuilt in 2010 under BSF until the programme was axed by the new government.

However its rebuild was then made a pilot project by the DfE to find ways of delivering school buildings at a lower cost than previous programmes.

The scheme was selected as the Sebastian James Review of Education Capital Pathfinder Project

Lessons learned during its construction helped to shape the PSBP.

Today the Government are announcing both £2bn worth of rebuilding programmes and how more than £4bn will be allocated between 2015 and 2018 to schools, local authorities, academy trusts, and voluntary-aided partnerships to help them improve the condition of schools.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: “It is crucial that we invest properly in education, so that every child has a fair start in life.

“Thousands of pupils will benefit from better, brighter, warmer classrooms thanks to this funding.

“Children can’t learn and teachers can’t teach in schools that are cold and have leaking roofs.

“To create a stronger economy we have to invest in a fairer society so that our young people can be successful in the future.”

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said: “As part of our long- term economic plan, we have continued to invest in school buildings which will ensure we can deliver even more great new schools, transform the learning environment for tens of thousands of pupils and their teachers whilst delivering value for money for the taxpayer.

“We’re also making sure, for the first time, that every local area can benefit from more funding certainty, so that local councils, academy trusts and voluntary-aided partnerships can plan ahead and make the right investment decisions that will deliver the best possible value for their schools. This announcement is a major step towards ensuring all children no matter what their background and no matter where they live have access to the best possible schools and learn in an environment that gives them the knowledge and skills to succeed in the global race.”

Stuart Andrew, the Conservative MP for Pudsey, Horsforth and Aireborough, welcomed the news that Guiseley School will receive a share of the PSBP funding announced today.