MULTI-MILLION-pound plans to rebuild a run-down Oxford primary school have been brought back to life in the face of swingeing Government and council cuts.

Oxfordshire County Council has found £6.6m to create a new building for Bayards Hill Primary School in Barton, six months after pupils’ dreams of a 21st-century school were dashed by Government spending cuts.

Barton councillor Liz Brighouse, who has lobbied for the project to go ahead for five years, said: “I am absolutely delighted and over the moon.”

The proposal is set to be rubber-stamped next month and means plans will have to be redrawn to fit the new budget.

The 410-pupil school was promised an £8m rebuild in 2006, with the decaying 1950s blocks demolished and the Roundabout Children’s Centre and Oxfordshire Music Service set to be incorporated on the same site.

Councillors had condemned the school’s existing buildings as “not fit for purpose” and hoped a new building would help boost pupils’ results in Barton.

But the project floundered when Sport England blocked the proposals because it would mean losing playing fields.

Even though the objection was later over-ruled, the delay appeared to have been fatal.

When the new Government came to power in May, it decided the Primary Capital Programme funding had to be cut, and the county council froze the planned investment.

While nearby Wood Farm school pressed ahead with its £12m rebuild, the Bayards Hill project was scrapped, leaving children, parents and staff devastated.

Now Oxfordshire County Council has assembled £6.6m of funding and the rebuild has been pencilled into the capital budget for 2011-15. The scheme is expected to be similar to the previous one, despite the reduced budget.

A change in the way the Government funds school building projects has helped the council find the money.

Grants that went directly to schools for minor building projects have been cut by 80 per cent, with local authorities instead receiving a Capital Maintenance Grant.

The Barton rebuild was deemed most in need.

This year, £125,000 was spent on covering the costs of the cancelled project.

Councillors are set to back the rebuild at the budget meeting on Tuesday, February 15.

Headteacher Keith Ponsford said: “The original designs for the new school were absolutely beautiful.

“It would have created one site where children could smoothly flow from pre-birth, with pre-natal provision at the Roundabout Centre, right up to 11 years old. But we are not celebrating yet – not until the council vote through their budget. I do not want to raise people’s expectations again after all we have been through.”

Councillor Michael Waine, who is responsible for Oxfordshire’s schools, said the rebuild would have to be scaled back.

He said: “I am delighted that the question-mark hanging over the Bayards Hill School rebuild is recommended to be removed at the February county council meeting.

“I very much hope that the new build will put a value on the education of the children of Barton and, along with good teaching, inspire them to achieve their potential.”

Mrs Brighouse said: “We were all really upset when the money was lost.

“At Wood Farm, we are getting a brilliant new school which is growing up from the ground every day, but the children of Barton were not going to get the same. Now they are going to get what was originally intended for them.”

lsloan@oxfordmail.co.uk