VILLAGE COMMUNITY SCHOOL

A piece of land at a former Derby school could be sold off for housing because the council says it cannot afford the £4m maintenance and repair bill for the crumbling buildings on the 15-acre site. The latest Derby City Council proposals for the former Village Community School, in Village Street, Normanton, come despite the fact its leader, Maurice Burgess, said three years ago that the land should be "used for football pitches, not housing". But Mr Burgess now says there is no other option but to consider offloading a 6.9-acre part of the site, which is likely to be valued at about £2.5m, as the council cannot afford the repair bill, a part of the authority's £90m maintenance backlog.

Since the school closed in September, 2001, it has cost £32,500 a year to keep the buildings secure from vandals and thieves and £5,000 a year has been spent on grounds maintenance. Now the council's cabinet is expected to agree that the empty school buildings and surrounding area should be sold off. However, the authority is also expected to rule that playing fields on the site will be retained as public open space. A pupil referral unit on the site will be relocated under the proposals. The Sunny Hill-Austin Estate branch of the SureStart scheme, which aims to help youngsters in disadvantaged areas, is also based at the school. It is already being moved to the soon-to-be-revamped Homelands House building at the site and could be extended to include adult learning services under the plans.

A section of the land has been sold to Central Derby Primary Care Trust, and there are proposals to build a health care centre. If the proposals are agreed, a planning brief for the site will be drawn up to set out how many homes could be built on the site. It is hoped that a brief would go out to public consultation by the middle of next year. The council had originally hoped that an organisation would come forward with proposals to develop the site for community use but this appears to be increasingly unlikely and the bill for maintaining the buildings is rocketing.

Mr Burgess said, "One of the problems is the amount of money that will be required to get it into proper condition and we've not got that money. There was extensive consultation two years ago with local people and users and the council was optimistic that the whole building would be used for community use. The money wasn't forthcoming so we're going to have to go into another round of consultation. We have a shortage of housing in the city and we cannot afford to put the site right. The proposals we're putting forward will be ones that, hopefully, we'll have support from local people for."

A new pupil referral unit for 11-to-14-year-olds is to be built in the city to replace the temporary one on the former Village Community School site. The city council is preparing to bid for £2.3m targeted funding to build the unit but has still to identify a site for it. A pupil referral unit for seven to 11-year-olds already exists at Newton's Walk, Derby, and, until September, 2002, catered for the older age group. The units are designed to give temporarily and permanently excluded pupils from other schools the chance to study before being integrated back into mainstream schools.

The state of the building at Village School is forcing the council to look for new premises. The council was unsuccessful in its bid to the Government for cash to build a new pupil referral unit last year. Simon Longley, city council assistant education director, said, "We need to secure new provision for excluded pupils but where that should be placed has yet to be decided. We're submitting a bid for the money by the end of the month." The new building will need six classrooms, a computing room, small hall and meeting rooms for 45 pupils.