PLANS to demolish four district secondary school buildings and replace them with state of the art facilities have officially been revealed.

Yesterday, planning applications for Belle Vue Boys School in Heaton, Carlton Bolling College in Undercliffe, Oakbank School in Keighley and Samuel Lister Academy in Cottingley were submitted to Bradford Council.

The projects form part of the government's Priority Schools Building Programme, and the latest batch will mean £100 to £150 million from the Education Funding Agency is spent to improve seven secondary schools in Yorkshire.

The schools were all identified as being the most in need of work in the district. Earlier this year a Council report revealed that the four school buildings were responsible for a £12m maintenance backlog.

In October, engineering group Laing O’Rourke was chosen to fund, design, build and maintain the seven Yorkshire schools, and its plans have now been unveiled.

Belle Vue Boys School is currently in special measures and in the process of being taken over by the Beckfoot Academy Trust.

The takeover will mean the all boys school wil become a mixed school and the new building will have facilities to meet this need. There will also be a new four court sports hall built.

The Carlton Bolling application says the design of the new building was "limited by the challenging topography" of the site, but that the new three story school building would be constructed on the existing hard play court.

This plan also includes a new sports hall and sports court area, built on the site of the existing building.

In both cases the existing buildings will remain operational while the new buildings are built.

A Department for Education spokesman said it was not able to say exactly how much was being spent on each school at this point.

"Under our plan for education, we are rebuilding those schools most in need of repair across Yorkshire.

"Seven schools are being rebuilt with private finance in the region in total, including four in Bradford.

"We have recently submitted planning applications for these four schools and hope to begin building work in due course. All the projects are due to be completed before the end of 2017."

Councillor Ralph Berry, the executive member for children's services at the Council, said: "The plans I've looked at are major improvements and they are very welcome.

"We don't want this to drag out, we've already been waiting for a while to improve these school buildings.

"I'm impressed by the designs they have been able to come up with. It is very good news all round."

A decision on the applications will be made by the local authority in March.

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