New £6m school will replace two

TWO schools will be bulldozed to make way for a new multi-million pound school in Weston.The run-down Bournville infant and junior schools will be demolished and replaced by a new £6million-plus school on the same site, a North Somerset Council education chief has confirmed.Department head of resources, Roger Eggleton, said both schools are in need of work, but Bournville Junior School is especially poor having been diagnosed with concrete cancer. It requires monthly building inspections and can no longer be patched up, he said.The authority plans to build the new school, big enough for 420 pupils aged from four to 11, on vacant school grounds.Children from both schools will then move into the new school and the other two demolished.The new school could keep its doors open later than normal to accommodate after school clubs and community classes.Investment in scores of other needy North Somerset schools could be unlocked depending on the outcome of a Government funding bid for the Bournville project. A decision on the bid is expected in late November.Mr Eggleton said: "Whatever happens, we are going to build the school. It's the highest priority in our capital programme."The junior school needs to be rebuilt because it needs a lot of work. It's getting to the stage where it's no good just patching it up."If the Government gives us the money, it means we can release other capital funding for more work. We hope we get it because there are plenty of other schools that need help too, about 65 need varying degrees of work done."The problem is the Government asks for bids, gets double the number and then chooses the most needy."We put in a bid for Bournville two years ago and only missed out by a couple of points. Sometimes we are lucky, sometimes we are not. We really can't tell if we'll be successful this time.