PLANS to merge two special schools in East Hampshire have hit a hurdle after Hampshire County Council failed to secure £5 million of government funding for the scheme.

Education officers have expressed dismay after learning that their £5 million bid to help pay for a new special school in the district, and a new boyÕs school in Havant, had been turned down.

This means that fresh uncertainty surrounds the future of the Meadow School in Bordon and the Whitedown School in Alton which the council has agreed to merge to create a brand new enlarged special school on the site of the Meadow School.

The hope is that the new school will cater for children aged between two and 19 years old with a wide range of special needs including learning difficulties and profound and multiple disabilities.

Mainstream schools will also get in on the act with Mill Chase Community School in Bordon setting up a unit which will provide support for up to ten children with moderate learning difficulties.

This will enable pupils to go to a mainstream comprehensive school while also receiving specialist attention and expertise from the unitÕs staff.

Although education chiefs still intend to go ahead with the merger, the unsuccessful bid now means that it will not happen as soon as was hoped because the formal consultation period has been delayed.

Hampshire County Council had been hopeful that the new school will be open by March 2004.

Questions are also being raised about where the funding for the new school will come from.

Council spokesman Tracy Buckland told The Herald: ÒWe were unsuccessful in our bid for funding from the DfES, which of course we were very disappointed about.

ÒWe are very committed to the project and are now going to look at other ways of funding it.Ó

Deputy county education officer George Heller has now written to all parents at both schools apprising them of the situation and promising them that the council still wanted the merger will eventually go ahead.

In his letter he says: ÒIn December we submitted a bid to the Department for Education and Skills for funding but we were unsuccessful.

ÒHaving considered all the bids the Department for Education and Skills was able to support projects amounting to £193 million whereas the bids exceeded £400 million.

ÒI know you will share our disappointment but we must now concentrate on looking at other ways in which this very important project can go ahead.

ÒBuilding a new school on the Bordon site would cost between £6.7 to £7 million. Until funding can be secured for this project the county council cannot issue public notices which would be the next stage in making the reorganisation happen.Ó

In his letter Mr Heller says that one possible way of raising money to build the school could be through selling off one of the councilÕs assets.

He says: ÒOne possible way of funding this project is receipts; that is using money which the county council receives from selling off assets such as land and buildings.

ÒWe are, therefore, looking at what opportunities there are here but this will take time.

ÒI will keep the schools and governors up to date with progress. Rest assured that this is a project to which the county council is firmly committed.Ó