Council must wait to reapply for essential school repairs funding

EDUCATION officials in the East Riding are confident they will not miss out on millions of pounds of Government funding, despite being excluded from the latest hand-outs in a national schools rebuilding programme.

East Riding Council has been told it must wait until the new financial year before it can be considered again for inclusion in the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) scheme.

But a public spending squeeze and the prospect of a general election before long has led to uncertainty over future grants, and whether a Conservative Government would continue with the programme.

A year ago, the Council made an “expression of interest” for as much as 80m of BSF funding, which it had earmarked to rebuild or remodel five schools identified most needing repair.

A successful bid would pave the way for a final application for between 250m and 300m from BSF to rebuild or refurbish every secondary and special school in the East Riding.

The East Riding is one of four councils in Yorkshire that have yet to be included in the scheme, which is funded through Partnerships For Schools.

Some councils say they have had “mixed messages” from Government over the future of the flagship scheme.

But Malcolm Sims, BSF project director at the council, said hopes were still high that the East Riding would get its share.

“We remain positive that we will be invited; we are moving up the priority list,” he said.

“What we are still asking is for that 80m for the five schools, which is important for the schools. We’d like to get our share of the funding and it will make a huge difference.

“The larger amount is something we could look at later down the line for a complete BSF programme over a number of years.”

The East Riding’s priority schools include Withernsea High School, Cottingham High, Wolfreton in Kirk Ella and Riverside Special School in Goole.

A Council report last year described the fabric at Withernsea and Wolfreton as “extremely poor”, while at Cottingham many buildings were “not fit for purpose”.

The authority has already completed a 15m refurbishment of the former Vermuyden school in Goole, which was reopened last year as Goole High School.

It hopes to recoup this investment through BSF.

A Conservative Party spokesman said the Tories would not pull the plug on existing BSF commitments, but could not give guarantees for those councils which had yet to be included in the scheme.

He said: “We would honour existing contracts to rebuild or refurbish a school and we will continue to build new schools, but we can’t make detailed promises on particular projects because the Government will not publish the necessary information and is operating without budgets for next year.”

Neighbouring Hull has had a 465m BSF project approved.

A total of 400m is being spent on secondary and special schools, with the remainder pledged for primary schools.

The Hull BSF team faced a stormy public meeting last week over plans to close David Lister secondary early.

Officials had planned to shut the Rustenburg Street site in 2015, but in December it emerged the Government wanted to close the school “as soon as possible”.

A Council report also said keeping it open until 2015 was not feasible because of falling pupil numbers, difficulties in recruiting teachers, and its failure to adequately address poor standards of teaching and learning.

But the report showed that the 840 pupils now attending David Lister cannot be accommodated across the five other secondaries in East Hull until 2012.

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