Education funding cut sees 10 new school buildings halted

All 10 schools affected by the announcement are either integrated or shared education campuses

An integrated primary school in County Down is one of 10 schools that will no longer get new buildings as planned.

The principal of Millennium Integrated Primary near Saintfield said there is widespread disappointment funding for their new school is no longer there.

Funding for new buildings was part of a multi-million pound funding promise in the Fresh Start Agreement in 2015.

A Department of Education (DE) spokesperson said that £150m of that funding is now no longer available.

The spokesperson said that any remaining Fresh Start funding will still allow nine new build projects currently in construction contract to be completed and said that no building work will be stopped.

"There are a further ten potential new build projects in planning and design for which Fresh Start funding from the UK government is no longer available," they said.

The spokesperson added that these ten projects will continue to progress through the planning process should future funding become available.

Education Minister Paul Givan has also written to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to request funding is restored to support these projects.

The DE said that £150m of funding from the Fresh Start Agreement has now been placed in the UK Government's financial settlement for the Executive as funding for wider public sector transformation.

Stormont's Executive has previously agreed to allocate £688m to allow public sector pay deals to be progressed following widespread strike action across Northern Ireland in recent months.

Millennium Integrated Primary principal Barry Corrigan said the DE informed them that they were no longer in a position to continue with their new school project on Thursday evening due to funding.

All 10 schools affected are either integrated or shared education campuses.

Millenium Integrated Primary in Carryduff, which has more than 400 students, had already started significant preparatory work for their new school

Mr Corrigan told BBC Radio Ulster's Evening Extra programme that there was a lot of "long faces" among their school community when they were told the news.

He said that a lot of preparatory work had already been undertaken on school grounds for construction work to start.

'Rug was taken out from under us'

"I have been involved in the project since I took over in 2017, so there has been seven years of ongoing work and meetings with the Department of Education - it's been quite significant," he said.

He said that in partnership with the DE, they constructed a number of temporary classrooms in anticipation for the new building to enter the construction phase.

The principal said that now more than half of the pupils at the school are being educated within these temporary classrooms and they have now been told now no new school building is forthcoming.

"The rug was taken out from under us last night but we will forge forward on a number of things, but there is no getting away that there is widespread disappointment," he said.

Stormont and UK government ministers were just two days ago planting a tree at the official opening of a shared education campus in Limavady, County Londonderry.

So there will be surprise over how 10 shared education and integrated school building projects are now missing out on funding.

The £150m was expected to flow from 2015's Fresh Start Agreement - one of the many political deals over the years aimed at keeping Stormont afloat.

But as power-sharing returns from another hiatus, the Department of Education says the UK government has repurposed that funding.

For some it calls into question just how "generous" the £3.3bn financial offer from the Treasury for a restored Stormont really has been.

For others it may show yet again that when it comes to Northern Ireland's finances, there is no magic money tree.