A BOLD plan to build three new secondary schools in Salford is being considered by Education Minister Stephen Timms.

The city is bidding for £41.5m of Private Finance Initiative cash to replace Hope High and Buile Hill High in Pendleton and Harrop Fold in Walkden.

All three buildings date from the 1950s and at Hope and Buile Hill, 11 temporary classrooms have been put up on each site to cope with an influx of pupils from the former Windsor High School, which closed last year.

This week, a delegation from Salford, including Buile Hill headteacher Gena Merrett and chief education officer Mark Carriline, travelled to London to meet the minister. A decision will be made at the end of next month.

The new buildings could be constructed on existing playing fields at the schools, or other sites may be found.

Under PFI, private companies would build the schools and then rent them to the local education authority.

Salford has already landed £15.1m on the PFI to replace ageing special schools.

Potential

Education spokesman Councillor Keith Mann said that if the bid was successful, the city would then aim to replace or improve more schools. ‘‘We are hopeful, but we still have a lot of lobbying to do,’’ he said.

‘‘It would make a significant contribution to the ability of staff and pupils at these schools to improve their attainment. I am sure if they had brand new spanking buildings with state-of-the-art facilities they would respond.

‘‘If we are successful, we would be working with private partners looking at the city’s school building stock as a whole.’’

One way of raising cash for further improvements will be selling off up to a dozen primary schools.

The city has 3,500 surplus places in primary schools and is under severe pressure from the government to reduce them dramatically.

Mrs Merrett said: ‘‘The area where our school is has suffered from high crime levels, deprivation and decline.

‘‘We believe that building new schools will raise achievement, improve student retention and help community regeneration. It will attract families to move or stay in the area and so halt community decline.

‘‘The alternative is to spend about £5m at Hope and Buile Hill, building new extensions to old buildings, which to us does not make sense.’’