Last week the Prime Minister set out a ‘New Deal’, an ambitious strategy to help Britain recover. His aim is to put jobs, skills and infrastructure investment at the heart of our economic recovery and ‘level up’ the entire country. For the South West generally, this means more money for our schools, roads and towns.
In the constituency the main benefit will be to our schools. Across the South West, 135 schools will benefit from extra funding from the Condition Improvement Fund (£434 million nationally) to expand classrooms and upgrade facilities. In Wiltshire, this will fund 27 projects across 24 schools. Here in the constituency, the funding will go to Avon Valley College and Bishops Cannings, Rushall, All Cannings and Woodborough Church of England Primary Schools. It will pay for building improvements or urgent works, including replacing heating pipes, toilet refurbishment or roof repairs. On top of this, the Prime Minister has also announced a new transformative 10-year school rebuilding programme. This will be kick-started with over £1 billion for the first 50 projects in 2020-21.
As we bounce back from the pandemic, it’s important we lay the foundations for a country where everyone has the opportunity to succeed, with our younger generations front and centre. Our schools have played a key part in responding to the coronavirus crisis, ensuring their doors remained open for the children of essential workers and adapting to a new way of teaching and caring for children.
The Chancellor is due to give an update this week on the economy overall, but this news is encouraging. As we begin to recover from the coronavirus crisis we should not aim to ‘return to normal’, but to try and improve on what we had before, and I welcome this announcement.
