Bradford schools could be forced to meet spiralling repairs costs from their own budgets.

A report by Bradford Council warns that schools are falling apart faster than education bosses can afford to repair them.

The massive backlog of repairs has now risen to almost £100 million, with more than £39 million needed to be spent urgently.

The report, which will go before Bradford Council's Young People and Education Improve-ment Committee on Wednesday, calls for a strategy to persuade schools to pay more towards the repairs themselves because they now receive more funding directly from the Government.

But the proposal, put forward by Council officers, raises fears that schools' expenditure on books and teachers could be affected.

The cost of school repairs has almost doubled in the last four years and now stands at £98,346,214.

£15.4 million was spent last year trying to tackle the situation. Of this, £3.5 million came direct from Bradford Council, the given to schools in devolved budgets.

But according to the new report, more than £39 million needs to be spent on urgent repair work and a further £20 million needs to be found for work in the next two years.

Councillor Phil Thornton, the chairman of the committee which scrutinises education in Bradford is demanding answers on why the situation has got so bad.

He said: "I am extremely concerned, these figures are alarming and it has been allowed to double in the last four years so we are now looking at £39 million of work which is needed for priority repairs. It is an outrage."

Coun Thornton said he would be demanding to know if failure to complete any of the repair work would leave schools in dangerous conditions for pupils. Currently Bradford Council is responsible for paying 55 per cent of the repairs bill with schools meeting the other 45 per cent from their own budgets.

But the report says: "At present funding levels schools are deteriorating faster than the increase in funding for backlog maintenance."

Coun Thornton said the authority should look at clawing back surplus cash from schools which had money sitting in the bank.

He added: "Around £46 million of the repairs backlog is in Bradford Council's secondary school estate and a further £5.9 million is the district's special schools.

Bradford Council is one of the pathfinder authorities for the Building Schools for the Future programme which will see every secondary school in the district either rebuilt or refurbished in the next ten years.