TEACHING unions in Blackburn say a scheme to involve businesses in the funding of work to rebuild a school in the town will end with profit being made from education budgets.

The Government has been asked to give permission to St Wilfrid's High School to fund the rebuilding of crumbling classrooms by using the controversial Private Finance Initiative.

In March, an Ofsted report labelled the school buildings a health and safety hazard for pupils and if St Wilfrid's gets the final go-ahead, it will end a long-running saga.

Governors at the school have even looked at leaving the present Byrom Street and Duckworth Street sites and moving out of Blackburn to solve their problems. But now, it appears school bosses may be on the way to finding a solution via the PFI, which was pioneered under the last Conservative Government.

It is now a widely-accepted means of funding a range of public sector projects, including rebuilding work at hospitals and prisons and on roads as well as at schools.

For schools, PFI means services will be bought from the private sector over a lease of between 20 and 65 years.

But Simon Jones said the arrangement is "a rental agreement in which you pay over the odds but end up never owning the asset." He added: "Our opposition to PFI is quite simple: PFI providers are private companies that are in the business to make a profit. The only place that profit can come from is the state education budget and this is money that ought to be used for other things."

Teachers and governors at St Wilfrid's have long wanted to see their school refurbished, but have not been able to afford the cost.

The school had wanted to move to another site on playing fields at Feniscliffe but had their plans blocked by Blackburn councillors, which led to suggestions that St Wilfrid's may move out of the borough altogether to Knuzden on the Hyndburn and Blackburn border, or on the site of the former Brockhall Hospital.

St Wilfrid's has recently come back under Blackburn with Darwen Council control after having been a grant maintained school.

Acting head teacher David Whyte had no comment.

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