CHILDREN at a village primary school are looking forward to using their new school hall for physical education lessons.

Durham County Council is expected to start work on the hall at Witton-le-Wear Primary School, near Bishop Auckland, in the next few weeks

The building was funded by Darlington Football Club chairman George Reynolds with a £100,000 gift. But Durham County Council identified work costing about £10,000 which was needed before the hall could be used for sport.

The work includes creating storage for sports equipment, putting mesh over the lighting and adding cladding to smooth the interior walls.

A county council spokesman said: "The county council has identified a number of works that would enable the hall to be fully commissioned, and is confident that the situation can be achieved in the very near future.

"We always knew that there was going to be more work necessary so it could be used for all its planned purposes.

"We have been waiting to identify resources to allow the works to take place."

Michael Clough, the school's headteacher, said: "We are very grateful for the generous donation of the school hall and we are just waiting to use it as fully as we possibly can.

"It's used for lunches, assemblies and we have groups of children working in there with a teacher. We are just waiting to use it for PE."