No guarantees for new school building plans (From The Northern Echo)

No guarantees for new school building plans

8:52am Friday 19th March 2010 in

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SCHOOL rebuilding projects across the country would be axed if the Conservatives win the General Election, the Government alleged yesterday.

Ministers leapt on an admission by the Tory schools spokesman that schemes that had not reached “financial close” by election day “won’t be guaranteed”.

There are 58 local education authorities, including Darlington, Hartlepool, Redcar and Cleveland, and Stockton, where final contracts to deliver the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme have not been signed.

The revelation comes as pressure grows on the Tories to explain how it plans to meet its pledge to cut the Budget deficit faster than Labour.

The Conservatives need to free up cash for their plans for “free schools” to be set up by parents, charities and businesses.

That policy would allow anyone to turn a building into a school without the need for planning permission.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls said: “We already knew the Tories were planning to cut our school rebuilding programme by £4.5bn in areas which have not yet joined the BSF programme.

“But the admission that all areas where final contracts have not yet been signed and sealed could also see building projects cancelled means hundreds more schools than we previously thought are at risk.”

Tory schools spokesman Nick Gibb made his apparent slip at a seminar to discuss his party’s education plans.

Asked if all planned BSF schemes would go ahead, he said: “If a scheme has got to financial closure, that’s it, it’s going to happen.”

But asked to give a similar commitment to schemes earlier in the programme, he said: “Then it won’t be guaranteed.”

Yesterday, the Conservatives insisted the BSF programme was “hugely timeconsuming and expensive”.

A spokesman said: “We want to speed up delivery, to get new schools built faster where they’re needed most.”