Plans for a £40 million total rebuild of Stanground College and £20 million improvements at Orton Longueville School in Peterborough have been axed due to a government decision to stop the national Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.

The budget cuts have also cancelled a £20 million project to provide all local authority secondary schools and four special needs schools in Peterborough with new ICT infrastructure and equipment.

However, there are hopes that plans for a new £20 million Ormiston Bushfield Academy may be saved after Education Secretary Michael Gove announced that its future would be subject to discussion along with all academy projects in development that have not reached 'financial close'.

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Peterborough City Council has already named Kier as the preferred contractor to design and build the new Ormiston Bushfield Academy.

Councillor John Holdich, Cabinet Member for Education, Skills and University, said: "Our city council officers and the schools themselves have invested considerable effort in developing these plans so this decision is very disappointing for them.

"However, we knew that the coalition government intended to scrap the Building Schools for the Future programme, which it viewed as inflexible and needlessly complex.

"We will be seeking an urgent meeting with the Minister in the next two weeks to demonstrate our project offers value for money and is relatively free of bureaucracy and complexity and will deliver on time, on budget to maximise educational outcomes."

(CD/GK)