ANGRY parents have blamed bungling bureaucrats' for holding up the £7 million redevelopment of a crumbling primary school for more than four years.

Fears have been raised over the future of Churchfields Junior School, in South Woodford, after work to replace its ageing Victorian buildings with a new state-of-the-art facility was halted by a series of delays.

Parents have demanded a final start date be set for the scheme, which was originally given the go-ahead by Redbridge Council in 2004.

The cost of the project has risen by more than £500,000 since then, because of the increased price of building materials and labour caused by the Olympic site development in Stratford.

Toby Walne, who has two children at the school, said parents were fed up with hearing excuses for the hold-up, and was worried his son Harrison, six, and daughter Sophia, eight, would have left by the time the work was completed.

He said: "This just seems to be more bungling bureaucracy to me.

"The delays look like incompetence, and I'm getting annoyed with the excuses we are given by the council.

"At this rate, my children might not be here to use the it when it's finished."

As long ago as 2001 council surveyors who examined the building concluded that it was structurally the worst junior school in the borough, with damp a particular problem.

But Mr Walne, 41, questioned the need for a brand new building and said he, and several teachers he had spoken to, would rather see the existing school renovated.

Sharon Brooker, who has two nephews at the school, said she was concerned the premises would fall further into disrepair by the time a start date was finally agreed.

She added: "It's not fair that children should have to put up with sub-standard conditions while the council gets its act together."

Redbridge cabinet member for childrens services, Cllr Michael Stark, blamed the delay on the council's heavy financial commitment to the building of two other primary schools in the south of the borough.

He said: "We have been running a huge school building programme in this borough over the past year, and each of these projects has taken up a lot of time and money, which we can now focus on the Churchfields project.

"We hoped to start work in February or March, but it's now likely to begin in the summer."