HUDDERSFIELD could get a new primary school – thanks to a controversial financial programme.

Kirklees Council will next week apply for Government funding to build a new school in Crosland Moor to cope with the growing population in the area.

Councillors will also ask for money to refurbish All Saints Catholic College in Bradley; Mount Pleasant Juniors in Lockwood; Batley Grammar School and Whitcliffe Mount in Cleckheaton.

Ministers have made up to £3bn available nationally to pay for as many as 300 new or refurbished schools.

The funding will come through the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) – a controversial programme which a senior Conservative MP has described as “ripping off” taxpayers.

Kirklees’ Cabinet will decide on Tuesday whether to make the funding bids.

Cabinet member for education Clr Cath Harris explained that a new primary school was needed to cope with the growing population of Crosland Moor and Thornton Lodge.

The Ashbrow Labour woman said yesterday: “We will need to provide for up to 90 more children per year in that area within the next five years.

“Some of that could come from the expansion of Mount Pleasant, but it can’t take all the volume needed. Dryclough and Crosland Moor Infants are full so we need to find more provision.”

Kirklees officers believe Moor End Academy is the only “deliverable site” for a new primary school to serve Crosland Moor and Thornton Lodge.

Clr Harris said: “It’s a question of finding a suitable site we can build on.

“We need room for another three form classes and we need to consider what’s a suitable size for a primary school.”

The Cabinet has also been asked to apply for funding to allow Mount Pleasant Juniors to increase from 490 children to 630.

Officers also believe All Saints needs money to improve school buildings and to cope with growing pupil numbers.

Kirklees will also ask the Government for funding to rebuild Whitcliffe Mount and for Batley Grammar to take on more children.

Councils have until Friday to apply to the Department for Education for funding under the Priority School Building Programme (PSBP).

The council’s Cabinet will decide whether to go ahead with the bids at its meeting at Huddersfield Town Hall from 4pm on Tuesday.

Last year the coalition Government axed the previous Labour administration’s £55bn school-building plan.

Clr Harris said: “This seems to be the only capital funding available at the moment. It’s very small compared with the previous level of anticipated funding.”

The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) was introduced by John Major’s government in 1992 as a way of encouraging businesses to take part in public infrastructure projects such as building new schools and hospitals

The private contractor takes on the up-front cost of construction, with the taxpayer repaying over a long period – typically 30 years

PFI allows governments to get important infrastructure built with no impact on the Treasury balance sheet.

However, critics say PFI stores up problems for the future by saddling the taxpayer with decades of repayments at high rates of interest.

The taxpayer owes private firms £121.4bn for building projects which cost just £52.9bn. Next year the Government will have to make PFI repayments of £8.6bn.

Many PFI projects also involve private companies providing cleaning, catering and maintenance services for the new buildings. In 2008 it emerged that Wirral Council was charged £302.30 by a PFI firm for the installation of a plug socket at a school – 10 times the normal rate.

In August the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee’s Conservative committee chairman Andrew Tyrie, warned that government departments had become "addicted" to PFI and taxpayers were "ripped off".