A TOTAL of £7bn is to be spent replacing and refurbishing half the primary schools in the country, the Government announced yesterday.

Across England, one in 20 primary schools will be demolished and rebuilt and a further 8,000 refurbished within 15 years.

The money could be given to local education authorities within the next two years, the time-scale to be decided after a consultation launched yesterday.

Last night, the news was welcomed by local education authorities (LEAs) in the North-East and North Yorkshire, but some warned the money would not stretch far enough.

It was also unclear whether all authorities would get the money at the same time, or if more affluent areas would be pushed to the back of the queue, waiting up to 15 years.

A new primary school costs between £1.5m and £7m, depending on size and location.

LEAs will be asked to identify the schools in the worst condition.

Sunderland City Council said its five top-priority schools would cost £20m to replace and many more needed £1m to £2m of repairs.

The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) said the money would bring half its primary schools into a condition fit for the 21st Century.

It plans to make schools into community hubs with breakfast clubs, after-school care and facilities for the whole area. There are also plans to make the new schools environmentally friendly.

Sheila Palmerley, school places strategy manager for Durham County Council, said: "This is very good news. A considerable number of primaries in the county are in very poor condition."

She estimated that 200 schools in County Durham could do with some form of refurbishment, but said the money would probably not be enough for all schools to be repaired.

She said: "I don't think it sounds like enough. A lot of our schools are well past the sell-by date. Some are not suitable to provide a 21st Century education. For example, they don't have ICT (Information and communication technology) facilities or flexible learning spaces.

"Asbestos is in most schools and it can be expensive to remove. We will have to focus on those schools that are a top priority."

Hartlepool Borough Council welcomed the extra money. It said there was a £7.5m backlog of repairs within the town's schools.

Middlesbrough Council also welcomed the money and said it would apply to be one of the first to get the cash.

Councillor Paul Thompson, executive member for education and skills, said: "This is a golden opportunity to secure funds for better-quality buildings and facilities for primary schools across the authority, and particularly in east Middlesbrough."

But while more deprived areas like Middlesbrough may be in line for the cash, affluent areas could be forced to wait. The money will be allocated according to deprivation and numbers of pupils.

Bernadette Jones, North Yorkshire County Council's head of policy and development, said: "We have 328 primary schools, and in the last ten years we have rebuilt eight of them.

"We have had quite a lot of money from the Government to do various repairs over the years, but not on the scale of other local authorities.

"Some of the schools are old and Victorian but they are still substantial. We welcome any funding we can get."

Yesterday, all LEAs were sent a prospectus setting out proposals for a consultation exercise that will determine how the money is distributed.

This latest announcement follows the Government's Building Schools for the Future programme, which promised to refurbish and replace every secondary school in the country within 15 years.

However, this has been controversial - £6.5bn has already been awarded to some areas, such as Middlesbrough and County Durham, while others, such as Darlington, are being made to wait at least a decade.

There are about 18,000 primary schools in England. Many are prefabricated, post-war buildings that are now at the ends of their lives.

Most are more than 25 years old, with 60 per cent built between 1945 and 1976.

One North-East school that has recently been built is St Gregory's Catholic Primary, in Stockton, which replaced two crumbling schools.

Headteacher Peter Mackie said: "The old schools were built in the 1950s and 1960s and were in a terrible condition. It would have cost just as much to refurbish as rebuild.

"The new school is everything you could dream of, if only you knew it was possible."