REBUILDING schemes at seven crumbling North-East schools will be fast-tracked, it was announced – but 14 other projects have been hit by fresh delays.

And four ageing schools suffering delays – including one in County Durham – have been told there is no guarantee of funding, even after the 2015 general election.

The department for education (DfE) defended the latest hold-ups to its troubled rebuilding programme, insisting it was “making the right decision for the taxpayer”.

But Stephen Twigg, Labour’s education spokesman, attacked the lack of progress, saying: “This failure will mean pupils are stuck in overcrowded classrooms or under leaky roofs.”

The row blew up after the DfE announced that private cash would be sought to rebuild ten schools in the North-East and North Yorkshire “within the next year”.

Ministers originally promised that would take place before this summer, throwing into fresh doubt the hope that at least some of the schools will reopen in 2016.

The ten include Hetton Secondary School, in Houghton le Spring, Earlier this year, Hetton’s head teacher, Phil Keay, revealed the misery for his staff and pupils – after an original completion date of 2015 was abandoned.

Drainpipes have fallen from buildings, classrooms have to be shut off when asbestos-laden tiles move on windy days and broken heaters leave pupils shivering.

Bridget Phillipson, Labour MP for Houghton and Sunderland South, said, of Hetton’s scheme: “The rebuilding of the school has moved one step forward.

“But any delay to the Government’s timetable for securing funding from the market will have a knock-on effect for the scheduled opening date.”

Furthermore, the DfE has been forced to abandon plans to use the private finance initiative (PFI) for a further 137 schools across England, because no affordable deals are available.

Those 137 include St Joseph's Roman Catholic VA Primary School, in Coundon, County Durham, two in York and one in Gateshead.

They must now await a fresh spending round, to begin in April 2015, while the DfE battles it out with other departments to secure funding from the Treasury.

But there was better news for seven schools, in Hartlepool (3), Stockton-on-Tees (2), Redcar and Cleveland and Sunderland.

Ministers have decided they are in such a poor state that, with no hope of private funding, they will be rebuilt with direct DfE grants.- with work to start before 2015. 

Last night, a DfE spokesman denied the lack of available private finance threatened the North-East ‘batch’, insisting: “We are in the middle of its business plan and it will go out to market as soon as possible.”