PLANS to flatten and rebuild five Southampton secondary schools as part of a £110m bid to raise the city’s poor educational standards have been plunged into uncertainty.

Chamberlayne College for the Arts, Upper Shirley High School, Sholing Technology College and St George’s Catholic School were all due to be completely rebuilt.

Meanwhile, Bitterne Park School was due to undergo a massive makeover with extensive refurbishment and new buildings.

However, the Conservative Party Schools’ spokesman Nick Gibb yesterday refused to guarantee funding for the government’s flagship Building Schools for the Future scheme.

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He said projects that had not yet been finalised – like those in Southampton – would not be guaranteed to go ahead.

Instead he said that if a Conservative government was elected each school scheme would be decided on a case-bycase basis.

Communities Secretary and Labour MP John Denham described Mr Gibb’s announcement as a “devastating blow” for the city.

He said: “I worked very hard to get the £110m rebuilding programme brought forward so it could start this year but none of the schemes has reached financial close.

“There is now a huge question mark over every secondary school in the city.”

Becky Mepham, project manager for BSF in Southampton, said she was confident the five secondary schools’ transformation would go ahead, as funding has already been allocated through a Government spending review.

She said: “All projects that have closed have their funding and all others will be reviewed on a case by case basis. All our signs from the partnership for schools is that we remain significantly ahead of schedule and everything is remaining on course.”

Southampton City Council’s Conservative schools education chief Councillor Paul Holmes was unavailable for comment.

The city successfully won a government bid to become part of the Building Schools for the Future scheme two years ago.

During the last two years preparatory work has been undertaken and outline planning permission has already been obtained for Chamberlayne College, Upper Shirley High and Sholing Technology College.

Under the 15-year BSF scheme, every secondary school in England is due to be rebuilt or replaced by 2020, at a cost of £55 billion.