TOWN hall bosses have given the green light to rebuild three local schools with £37.5 million of private money.

They will submit a bid for cash through the controversial Private Finance Initiative (PFI) in the new year.

If successful, the money will build a new secondary school in Radcliffe to replace the town's existing Coney Green and Radcliffe high schools. A likely location would be the former East Lancs Paper Mill site in Cross Lane.

However, it has emerged that the new school would only take up around one-third of the PFI money, or £12.2 million. Substantial rebuilding work would also take place at Tottington High (costing £13 million) and Derby High (about £12.2 million).

Councillors at Wednesday's (Dec 18) executive approved the bid, which could be the first of many to bring in money for the borough's remaining high schools.

They say PFI is the most cost-effective way to make essential improvements: the council cannot borrow money the traditional way, nor raise enough from selling assets, to meet the cost.

Members also agreed to spend £100,000 on consultants to help prepare a detailed business case, should the Government approve the initial PFI bid.

Under PFI, a private developer would put up the money to build the new school and run it for a fixed period, say 25 years, before handing it back to the council. During this time the council will pay back the capital costs and provide annual sums to maintain the school.