£61m for Wirral's ailing school buildings

May 27 2008 by Alan Weston, Liverpool Daily Post

MORE than £61m is to be spent on improving the physical condition of a number of Wirral’s schools.

The money has been awarded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families and is to be spent on the borough’s primary and secondary schools.

The three-year package will be used for a range of physical improvements, including new kitchens, new classrooms, mobile classroom replacements, roof repairs and lab refurbishments.

The money will be allocated on the basis of which schools are in most need.

The biggest projects will see two new or extensively refurbished primary schools created.

At Wallasey, Poulton primary school will close at the end of this year’s summer term, with the majority of the 79 children transferring to nearby Park Primary.

However, to allow building work to be carried out at the Park site, the school will temporarily relocate to Poulton. Once work is complete, the Poulton site will be declared surplus to requirements and disposed of.

In the second project, Pensby infant and junior schools will be demolished and merged to create the new Pensby primary school.

The decision was taken because the current buildings are proving too costly to maintain.

Cllr Phil Davies, Wirral’s cabinet member for children’s services and lifelong learning, said: “An investment of this size will help us provide a world-class learning environment for our children and young people and help them achieve even higher educational standards, with more and better qualifications.

“If we invest in our children, we invest in the future, which can only be good news for Wirral.”

The latest injection of funding comes on top of a range of other projects designed to improve the borough’s schools.

In the biggest scheme, the Government is providing £26m to build a brand new secondary school at Woodchurch High, with work due to begin later this year.

Taken together, the different funding packages add up to more than £100m.

alanweston