Plans to rebuild schools across Greater Manchester schools are set to be scrapped under government plans to slash public spending.
Education secretary Michael Gove is set to announce this week that his is pulling the plug on the Labour's multi-billion Building Schools for the Future scheme.
The scheme promised to rebuild or renovate every secondary school in England.
Council chiefs warn the cuts will throw their education plans into chaos – and could open them up to legal action from building firms.
Oldham Council last week signed a £175m contract with developer Balfour Beatty to upgrade or rebuild nine secondary schools – with construction work starting in January.
But the scheme could now be scuppered as Mr Gove, who is to address local authority chiefs this week, is expected to mothball Labour’s flagship policy in an effort to save £1bn.
Building Schools for the Future is being implemented in a series of phases.
Manchester was among the first councils to apply for funding in 2004.
The majority of its schools have either been completed or under construction. However plans to refurbish, a further 12 schools in the city are now likely to be cancelled.
There are 1,200 new school projects across the country at various stages of development.
Although there has been no official confirmation about where the axe will fall, government sources suggest that the 500 most advanced schemes – where a preferred contractor has already been appointed – may be allowed to continue.
Salford, Rochdale and Tameside are all still in the planning phases of their schemes but have selected preferred bidder to construct the new schools.
Wigan, which is also applying for cash, has not yet selected the contractors.
Jack Hulme, the councillor in charge of Oldham schools, said: “We have just signed a deal to build these schools.
“We wouldn’t have signed if we didn’t think we could honour it.
Detailed report
“The council leader Howard Sykes met Michael Gove last month, where we emphasised the importance of the new schools to our area and sent detailed report on our programme so far.
“It may well be we have to prioritise. However, in my view it is essential that the first two schools – a new North Chadderton school and a new school combining St Augustine’s and Our Lady’s catholic schools - do go ahead as planned.”
Elsewhere, local authority bosses are secretly bracing themselves for bad news.
Ex-teacher Teresa Fitzsimons, now the councillor in charge of schools in Rochdale, where 12 schools are due to be refurbished, said: “At the moment we are proceeding with our plans to refurbish Cardinal Langley and Matthew Moss schools.
“As far as the other schools in our programme are concerned, we are holding back on any specific arrangements until there is more information from the government..
“We recognise there are going to be some painful decisions ahead.”
The process has already costs councils thousands in drawing up plans for new schools, consultations with parents and staff, and commissioning builders and architects.
And pupils and teachers in many schools have also gone through the heartache of being told they will close or merge as part of the scheme.
One Salford council source accused the government of making ‘ideologically motivated cuts’, warning: “We are too far down the line with this. It’s been a painful process, but everyone now knows what is happening. They will be shooting themselves in the foot if they pull the funding now.”
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The BSF programme is a way of closing and selling off our publicly owned schools and playing fields and replacing them with privately owned schools that will be leased back to the general public who owned the schools outright in the first place.
It is yet another scam to fleece the taxpayers and line the pockets of the fat cat friends of Tony Blair and New Labour.
The biggest losers will be the children who will end up paying for the schools for decades to come.
It’s ironic that it’s those other friends of the fat cats, the Conservatives and the Lib-dems, who are cutting the BSF programme.
Is that because they weren’t in on the original deals and weren’t getting a slice of the action?
I wonder how long it will be before the Conservatives and the Lib-dems resurrect the schools privatisation scam under a different name?
@peter franzen. Exactly. The Condems will put us all on a life support machine via more privatisation, then it will get so bad that those with cash will pay for private-proper stuff (health, education) Alas, I despair that we will all just sit back and take it...nothing will be left that isn't squeezed for a profit for that 5% who own it all.
Its amazes me that those people who voted in the LibConsfakers are now wishing they voted Labour. Oh well now its too late. They told you all what you wanted to hear and you bought it. It really is a shame that our children will suffer...... as usual.
typical of MEN you give an honest comment and they don't publish it
Privatise them and let TESCO run the schools we get value for money, no Bureaucracy, no red tape, no wastage, streamline the staff (supply Teachers), get coke to sponsor the drinks machines in school, streamline the pupils expell kids when and where we can and blame the parents, blame the teachers they have never known what they are doing since 1979, change the curriculum so it's based on a price check out and barcodes and computer science on clubcard database and logistics. The sun class can teach kids about celebrity and how devaluing and demeaning yourself can be very lucrative, MTV class for my crib/my sweet 16 to inform the not so fortunate that aspiring for a house a car and lifestyle that you will never achieve, Stella and Silk cut PE classes on keeping fit within reason.
I think for the coalition led by David & Nick this is a must policy in this bankrupt broken Britain, over run by Johnny Foriegner, Hoodie kids, single parents society. Come on the working classes please fulfil Benjamin Disreali's belief that you are all tories just as the sculpter see's "the angel in the marble". VOTE COALITION COME ON