Thanks to Wendy for sending in this opinion piece in to VentnorBlog. If have an opinion you’d like to express, please get in contact with us.
Here’s a question I’ve been asking myself, and indeed previously asked the IW Council before the cabinet agreed to go ahead with its proposals for school changes last November: Is the pot of Government money the council is hoping to draw on for new buildings, actually going to materialise now that the recession is biting?
Worryingly for the Council, not necessarily, it seems.
As reported by Polly Curtis in The Guardian yesterday, “The government’s promise to rebuild every secondary school in the country at the cost of nearly £45bn could be one of the first major casualties, the new report from the commons select committee for children, schools and families suggests. The Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme is currently under review amid concerns that the private finance it relies on is drying up.”
Building Schools for the Future (BSF) funding is already falling short in some areas. South Yorkshire paper, The Star, covering the same topic today says that “Sheffield’s Liberal Democrat council last year revealed plans to complete the city’s BSF programme were being hampered by a £23 million ‘black hole’ in government funding grants,” adding that the city council has approved plans to find the money from its coffers over the next five years so that secondary school rebuilds and refurbishments can be completed.
Potentially worrying?
We’ll contact the council and find out their opinion – Ed
Image: Indi.ca
