THREE rebuilt Blackburn schools could benefit from big cash savings from a shake-up of the controversial Private Finance Initiative which paid for their reconstruction.

They are Pleckgate High, Witton Park High and Blackburn Central High with Crosshill.

A special partnership was set up with Bolton Council and Balfour Beatty Education in 2009 to find hundreds of millions of pounds to reconstruct and upgrade secondaries across the two boroughs under the ‘Building Schools for the Future’ programme.

The three Blackburn secondaries saw investment of more than £150 million raised on the commercial financial markets to pay for the work.

However major concerns have been raised over the effect of the long-term repayments, which now fall on the schools not the councils, on educational budgets for teachers, other staff resources and equipment.

Trade unions and headteachers, including former Pleckgate boss Robin Campbell in 2012, have warned of a ‘financial timebomb’ under schools because of the repayment burden over 25 years.

Now Blackburn with Darwen Council has backed an exercise to see if it can refinance the loans in co-operation with new private sector partner Amber Fund Management.

It bought Balfour Beatty’s share in the Local Education Partnership in 2016.

Borough finance boss Andy Kay said the shake-up could deliver savings for the three schools ranging from pennies to millions of pounds.

Simon Jones, Lancashire representative for the National Union of Teachers, welcomed the move and said: “These schools are really struggling with the burden of debt repayments and any saving would be welcome.

“We warned about the long-term costs at the time.”

The borough’s executive board on Thursday approved joining ‘a scoping exercise’ to consider refinancing of the PFI contract.

Cllr Kay said: “We really do not know if there will be any savings at all. Any savings would go to the schools and ease pressure on their budgets.”

A report by finance boss Denise Park said: “There may be an opportunity to deliver a saving on the swap break costs with the lenders which could deliver a substantial financial benefit.”