PLANS for a privately-financed £35m "super-school" to be created in the North-East have been dealt a serious double blow, The Northern Echo can reveal.

Ministers have trumpeted the so-called education village in Darlington - the first of its kind in the country - as a blueprint for future developments across Britain.

The 1,400-pupil school was due to open next month, bringing together Haughton Community School, Springfield Primary School and Beaumont Hill Special School, and teaching pupils from the ages of three to 19.

However, it was revealed last month that building delays - blamed on bad weather last winter - had put the opening back until the new year.

And yesterday it emerged that the project could suffer even longer hold-ups, which Darlington Borough Council chiefs said were down to a vandal attack on the site.

Council officials are meeting representatives of Kajima, the construction firm behind the project, tomorrow, to determine how far away the opening could be.

The authority said vandals broke into the site over the summer, starting a fire in the swimming pool area, which caused severe damage to the roof of the building.

It is feared that the scale of the repair work may mean that a January opening is not possible - leaving hundreds of pupils staying at their old schools for even longer.

Meanwhile, the project is facing further turmoil after parents of Springfield pupils drew up a petition calling for their school to be "de-federated" from the scheme.

Parents have long held concerns about the development and recently called on the Local Government Ombudsman to investigate the council's handling of the project.

The petition calls for Springfield to leave the village's federated governing body and regain its own body.

The federated board of governors is understood to be meeting on November 3 to discuss the matter - something it must do, as parents of more than a fifth of registered pupils signed the petition.

It could either agree with the demands, dismiss them or dissolve the federated body.

If the issue is thrown out, parents could take the matter to the Secretary of State.

Meanwhile, council leader John Williams said that, if there was a delay to the opening date, it would be due to "the actions of a few mindless yobs".

He said: "We are doing all we can to ensure that work on the village is completed as soon as possible.

"I can assure parents that if there is a delay it will not adversely affect the education of pupils at any of the schools that will be moving to the village."

But one Springfield parent said: "They were aware of the vandalism over the summer holidays, so I don't understand the second delay."