A VILLAGE on York's outskirts has come a step closer to getting a new school, library and nursery.

City of York Council planners have received an outline application to demolish the existing St Oswald's Church of England Primary School at Fulford, and construct the new buildings on the same site.

Similar applications are set to be lodged shortly to replace Hob Moor Infant and Junior School and St Barnabas's School in Leeman Road.

The £8.3 million Private Finance Initiative (PFI) for the new schools was approved by the Government last spring.

The Fulford proposals, submitted by the council's director of education and leisure Patrick Scott, involve the provision of at least 12 classrooms catering for 360 pupils, plus 95 places for early years children.

At the moment, the school has 11 classrooms for 290 pupils.

The extra capacity is intended to cater for children who will live in the proposed massive housing development at nearby Germany Beck.

The school will be built at the edge of the existing playground, with children staying in the old school building until construction has been completed.

After moving in to their new premises, the old school will be demolished and turned back into playing fields.

The proposals also involve the provision of a new library for use by both pupils and the wider community, and also a community/meeting room for the use of local residents. City of York Council is hoping that Fulford Parish Council will become fully involved in the scheme to help ensure such community provision can be included.

Damon Copperthwaite, York's project manager, said the parish had agreed to its involvement in principle, but had been unable to commit itself to the project so far. However, the city council was hopeful that the parish would still do so.

He said the application had been lodged to remove as much of the planning risk as possible from the PFI contract.

A detailed application would be submitted at a later date by the company chosen to go ahead with the project, and it was possible this would differ from the outline bid which had just been submitted.

O'Neill Associates are the planning consultants for the projects and McNeil Beechey O'Neill Architects have come up with the initial outline designs for the building.

Updated: 08:12 Friday, February 28, 2003