MORE than £63m was promised by the government yesterday to rebuild or replace crumbling school buildings across the North-East - including £15m for Cleveland.

A further £21.5m was allocated to North Yorkshire, including £19.2m for a new secondary school.

The grants are part of a £1bn fund that will be used to refurbish schools. The move has been hailed by Education Secretary Ruth Kelly as a record investment in modern buildings. Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council will use its £11.7m to create a new educational future for the children of Saltburn.

The money will help provide an integrated campus, with a new Huntcliff Secondary School, a move for Saltburn Primary School across Marske Mill Lane and the completion of a purpose-built children's centre on the site.

Huntcliff headteacher Ruth Headdon said: "We're absolutely thrilled to bits. It provides a superb opportunity for the town, a chance to create a real learning village.

"And the added attraction will be the involvement of all the community in the facilities we will be able to provide."

The secondary school's 520 pupils will be joined on a single site by the junior and infants from Saltburn Primary, which operate on a split site.

Stockton Borough Council is to receive £3.3m to help build a primary school in the Roseworth area.

The money will be delivered over three years from April next year, allowing the school building to open in 2008 or 2009.

Councillor Alex Cunningham, the council's cabinet member for education, leisure and cultural services, said: "This is great news. Roseworth Primary School was built in the 1950s as separate infant and junior schools.

"The buildings are in poor condition, and they are not fully accessible for disabled people.

"A new building will offer the most up-to-date facilities for education in the 21st Century.

"This is what the children of Roseworth deserve.

"With a new Catholic primary school nearing completion at St Gregory's, and plans moving forward for a new Hardwick Primary School, this will transform the quality of primary school buildings in the north of Stockton town."

Other allocations in the North-East include:

* Darlington - £11.6m for refurbishment of local education authority schools;

* Darlington - £9.1m for redevelopment of voluntary-aided schools;

* Durham - £6m for rebuilding programmes in Crossgate;

* Durham - £1.5m for voluntary-aided schools.