A FAILING school in Prime Minister David Cameron’s Witney constituency had to scrap plans to become an academy because no money was available to repair its decaying buildings.

Wood Green School in Witney had been in talks with schools’ charity Challenge Partners.

The school had hoped to work with the charity to create a multi-academies trust, but the London-based charity refused to take ownership of school buildings which need a great deal of money spent on them.

Neither the government or Oxfordshire County Council agreed to pay for the work and CP decided it was too much to take on.

Headteacher Rob Shadbolt placed a notice on the school’s website on May 14 saying the plans had been abandoned.

He said: “We were of the view that becoming an academy would bring real education benefit.

“It felt like the right route for us to help us improve our results.

“CP had a really good track record and were working with us in a very positive way to help improve educational standards.

“Lots and lots of effort went into it but materially we had to come to the conclusion that it wasn’t the right time to form an academy trust because of the issue of capital funding.

“Some building work needs to be done and CP didn’t want to be responsible for that.

“Capital funding has been cut at the moment unfortunately and the money isn’t available for these kind of projects.”

Mr Shadbolt said the problem was not centred on a particular building project.

Scrapping the academy plan came as the Government last week unveiled plans to force all schools graded inadequate by Ofsted to convert to academy status.

Wood Green School was placed in special measures after being graded inadequate in an inspection in October 2013. Mr Shadbolt said the school is hopeful of coming out of special measures before the summer holidays.

Oxfordshire County Council spokesman Owen Morton said: “ For any school to become an academy, a funding agreement must ultimately be reached between the academy sponsor and the DfE.

Jess Talbot, programme manager for Challenge Partners added: “It has become apparent to the school and to Challenge Partners that this is not the time to join a multi-academy trust. We will continue to work with Wood Green on school improvement.”