COUNCILLORS are pressing ahead with a £25m school re-building project, despite claims that other schools have a greater priority for action.

Durham County Council is awaiting a Government decision on whether to give £6m to the £25m scheme to put the 1,400-pupil Durham Johnston Comprehensive School on one site, at Crossgate Moor.

The school has complained for some time about the state of its ageing building and the problems caused by having to operate at Crossgate Moor and Whinney Hill.

It missed out on help from the Government's Building Schools for the Future programme because the scheme is targeting schools with low attainment in deprived areas.

Durham Johnston is rated one of the best comprehensives in the country and the city is not officially classed as deprived.

But the council has come up with a redevelopment scheme, using money from the sale of land at Whinney Hill, Government funding and money it will borrow.

Duiring consultation on the scheme, the governors of Deerness Valley Comprehensive - now Durham Community Business College - at Ushaw Moor, objected to the plan.

Chairman of governors, David Bell, said that Deerness was among the schools considered high priority under Building Schools for the Future, while Durham Johnston was considered to be low priority.

He and his colleagues greeted news of the money for Durham Johnston with "absolute astonishment".

He said: "Students in the Deerness Valley do not generally come from affluent homes.

"There is often higher than average deprivation, higher than average poor health, a lack of support for continued study and lack of aspiration generally. The playing field is already stacked against our students.

"We have led the county on vocational 14 to 19 curriculum developments in buildings which are wholly unsuitable and labs and workshops that are antiquated."

But county council director of education, Keith Mitchell, said Durham Johnston was not being funded under Building Schools for the Future and that the authority was taking action because its redevelopment could not wait.

"Deerness are not being done out of their turn. They are in their rightful place. They will be in the last phase of Building Schools for the Future, for mid-Durham, but it could be 12 to 15 years," he said.

"The Durham Johnston scheme isn't being done to the disadvantage of them - we wouldn't be happy if it was.

"We know we are running out of time to do something with Durham Johnston. Deerness's buildings need improving, but Durham Johnston's need rebuilding."