The newly appointed headteacher of a tiny village school has expressed deep concern over the withdrawal of funding to improve the existing building.
Mark French, head of Flushing School made his comment after Cornwall county council's executive withdrew the funding to improve the school to pay for new classroooms at Penair School in Truro.
"The governors have received no communication from Cornwall county council regarding the withdrawal of funding for the rebuild of Flushing C of E Primary School, and are deeply concerned to learn of the Executive's decision which has taken place without consultation with the governing body," said Mr French.
"Our County Councillor, Robert Hichens, is pursuing this matter on our behalf."
The loss of the funding came about after members of the county council executive were asked to approve a scheme to replace the temporary classroom at Penair School which was destroyed by fire earlier this year with a permanent extension.
Outlining the scheme Terry Lello said the remaining three Elliott classrooms at the school were vulnerable and that it would, therefore, be sensible to replace both the destroyed building and the other Elliotts with permanent classrooms.
The meeting was told that allocating the funding necessary to upgrade the PRUs and replace the temporary classroom at Penair has made unforeseen demands on the Schools Capital Programme for 2006 / 2008 which now needed to be adjusted to meet these demands.
Proposals included removing the scheme to upgrade the primary school in Flushing from the programme. Plans to provide a new school were dropped in 2003 when estimated costs of replacing the 53 pupil school rose to more than £2.5 million. Since then a feasibility study into improving the existing school building suggested potential costs of approximately £1.5m and identified major difficulties in delivering the scheme. Consequently it was agreed that the Flushing situation should be considered within the county wide primary capital programme review.
"These are very difficult decision to make" said Terry Lello. "While we appreciate that this decision will disappoint the people of Flushing, removing the scheme from the current programme will release funding to enable these other much needed projects to be carried out."
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