FIGURES show Waltham Forest looks set to lose up to £17 million which has already been spent on planning for school improvement projects which have now been cancelled.

The governement decision to halt the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) project has seen £250 million worth of rebuilds and refurbishments to 16 exisiting schools in the borough stopped.

The council figures show £10 million was spent to acquire land off Blackhorse Road, Walthamstow, for a rebuilt Willowfield School, while more then £4 million was paid out on compiling business cases, carrying out surveys and other plannng costs.

Pupils at Leytonstone School were due to move to another temporary site to allow building work to begin five days before the government announcement.

Political fireworks are expected at a crisis meeting of full council tonight, which is expected to feature speeches from affected teachers and parents.

The government has admitted that Waltham Forest is one of the areas which will be worse affected by the decision to pull the plug on Building Schools for the Future.

The Tory Group says BSF was poorly managed locally, with delays caused by a failed plan to merge two Leyton schools on a green space site meaning a cut-off point for funding was missed.

But Labour hit back by defending its record on BSF saying vast improvements had been achieved and a number of schemes had been agreed and were on the verge of starting.

In a letter to Michael Gove, Secretary of state for Education, council leader Chris Robbins described the decision to halt BSF projects as a “devastating blow” to the borough.

He added: “Many of the schools projects in the BSF programme are set to complete within the next two years so the expectation of our schools community is at a very advanced stage. Indeed, some pupils were preparing to decant at the end of this month so the lack of an imminent alternative to BSF is bewildering to them.

“Our plans are at such an advanced stage that we had concluded an agreed outline business case which opened the way to immediate progress on some of our schools. This work incurred costs which will now be wasted if these schemes do not advance.

“There is a growing population in Waltham Forest which will result in a crisis of places available within the next three or four years if we cannot expand many of our existing secondary schools.

“Our BSF programme would have increased our forms of entry by 14. This will be a serious gap which we are under a legal obligation to fill and urgent financial support is needed if we are to meet future needs.”

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