PARENTS may have to pay £18 annually for each of their children who attend a Roman Catholic school to help unlock a pot of government cash to improve buildings.

It is one of the options being considered by the Salford Diocese in an attempt to gain an extra £8.5million funding for repairs and maintenance.

The diocese will only receive that top figure from the next financial year providing it can contribute £1.2 million towards repairs.

Currently the diocese pays £500,000 each year towards £3.5 million of funding for repairs and maintenance, a figure met by collections in parish churches.

Now church officials are looking into ways to raise the extra £700,000 or face having less money to improve school buildings.

One option is to charge the parent of each child £18. Another is to split that amount with churches and raise more through collections at mass. A third idea is a public appeal.

There are 222 primary and secondary schools in the Salford Diocese, of which a large proportion are in East Lancashire, including St. Hilda's, Burnley, St. Augustine's, Billington, Mount Carmel, Accrington and St.Bede's, Blackburn.

A spokesman for the diocese said: "One thing we are looking at is the system of charging parents in the Lancaster Diocese, which has been operating for two years, and one in Shrewsbury, which has been going for 18 months.

"But it would be wrong to say a decision has been finalised. We have to decide before the next financial year in April, so an announcement should be made in October. The 15 per cent we normally pay has been funded through collections and until now that hasn't been a problem.

"Even though our percentage contribution has reduced to 10 per cent, we will pay more because the amount is greater. So it is not a matter of our collections going down, but us having to find more money."