A BID to get funding for a £3 million skills centre in York for troubled teenagers who have been excluded or truanting from school has failed.

The Government has refused to provide £2.6m for the skills centre on the site of Fulford Cross School.

But City of York Council says the centre is a priority and it will still go ahead with the project using its own cash to fund it.

Coun Carol Runciman, executive member for education with City of York Council, said: "We have some funds already earmarked.

"We can manage without the Government money. We have enough kept in reserves to make the necessary additions to Fulford Cross."

The council put in two bids for funding last year, one for new classrooms at Huntington School and the other for the skills centre.

The Huntington bid was successful and the council will receive £2.6m for a new teaching block and community facilities.

The skills centre project will still go-ahead despite the knock-back from the Government, but the council, which will use its own money, will apply again for funding.

The centre will be based at the soon-to-close Fulford Cross School and would also house the city's pupil referral unit, currently based at Oaklands School. It will take about 100 children aged between 14 and 19 and provide work-based training in skills such as plumbing and mechanics, working with York College and Askham Bryan College.

If the scheme goes to plan, work on the centre could begin in September.

The Evening Press recently reported that there is a possibility the site at Fulford Cross could be sold of for housing, along with sites at Lidgett Grove and Northfield Schools.

Education chiefs said it was unlikely all three of the sites would be sold off.

The sites will become redundant after a reorganisation of special education taking place later this year.

Updated: 10:38 Thursday, March 11, 2004