£4m school cash comes year early

MORE than £4 million of funding will be ploughed into school projects in Oldham a year earlier than planned to kick start the local economy.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls last night announced that a total of £919 million of cash for school building projects will be brought forward with £390m directly given to schools and £499 million given to councils.

The remaining £30 million will will be available for play areas.

Head teachers across Oldham will be given a share of £1.99m from the £390m grant for smaller projects for new ICT facilities, new gyms or new classrooms.

And council chiefs will be given £2.3m to allocate as they see fit for larger school projects such as new sports halls.

Mr Balls said: “This is a very helpful way of supporting the economy and accelerating our schools capital improvement in every part of the country and doing so in a way that will help small and medium sized businesses in the local area.

“The Tories nationally oppose bringing forward spending, they are saying it is the wrong thing to do. This money means direct support for local small business, it means contracts being awarded.”

Accelerating £919m by 12 months is going to give immediate support to thousands of small and medium-sized businesses fitting out these new facilities. Mr Balls said.

He added: “We’ve transformed the quality of school facilities with 1,100 new or rebuilt schools in the last decade, 27,000 new classrooms and fantastic new facilities springing up across the country.

“Every school and 116 local authorities can now bring forward planned modernisations and refurbishments instead of waiting for another year.”