STAFF and students at a Kidderminster school are hoping for an early start to rebuilding work to replace an outdated sports hall and refurbish an ageing teaching block.

The government announced last month that Baxter College was one of the latest 239 schools to be awarded funding as part of the School Rebuilding Programme, from more than 1,000 applications.

Principal Matthew Carpenter said news of the long-awaited investment was like “winning the World Cup”, coming 12 years after the school missed out on a total new build when the government axed the controversial Building Schools for the Future programme.

He hopes the Habberley Road school will be in the first round, between April 2023 and March 2024, with completion within three years but it could take up to five years as schools allocated places on the programme will be subject to further due diligence and projects will be delivered at a rate of approximately 50 per year.

The multi-million pound bid, put together by the school and the Severn Academies Educational Trust of which it is a member, will see the old sports hall replaced with a state-of-the-art multi sports complex, doubling as an exam centre and benefiting from an efficient heating system.

The former St John’s Middle School building, which Baxter College inherited in 2007 when the district’s middle schools were scrapped in favour of a two-tier education system, will also be refurbished.

Mr Carpenter said: “The building was in a poor condition when it was given to us and contains asbestos making any kind of repair very, very expense. It never really fitted into the design of our site and has reached the end of its life span. Our sports hall is old and in desperate need of upgrading.

“We have been at the back of the queue for too long – we need these improvements as soon as possible now so that our students of today as well as the future can benefit".