DISAPPOINTED pupils at Flushing School are praying for a change of heart by county councillors next week after funding for a complete re-build was abruptly withdrawn during the Easter holidays.

Pupils, parents and staff of the school in Coventry Road were devastated to learn of the county council executive's decision to withdraw funding, just a month before going for planning permission.

County councillor, Robert Hichens, made representations to the executive at the time of the decision, without success. Since then he has achieved a "call-in", whereby the executive members of the county council will be required to take the issue of withdrawing funding for the re-build of Flushing School to a scrutiny committee which meets on Tuesday.

Mylor parish council has called an emergency meeting for Friday at 7.30pm in the Village Club in Flushing to discuss its response to the decision. Members of the public are being invited to address the council beforehand.

The governors of the school say they have reason to believe that the executive had not been aware of the full details of the situation on April 11 when they made their decision to cancel the Flushing scheme.

The Packet has received a number of letters this week from members of the community and parents with children at the school who are outraged at what has happened without consultation with anyone.

The school's governors say there is no moral justification to withdraw the scheme at this stage of development. They say since the scheme was given the go-ahead by the county council over a year ago, in excess of £60,000 of public money has been spent, or still outstanding as commitments on architects' plans and setting up the project.

The school children have been involved in feeding their ideas back to the architects; the scheme was due to go for planning approval in May, with the work scheduled to start in October of this year following several years of negotiation between the governing body and the county council.

Over the past few months the school has worked closely with the Wildlife Trust, county council and assigned architects to design a school that was fit for purpose and environmentally sustainable. The children have put forward their own ideas for the site, including a pond, raised growing beds, bird boxes built into the walls and alternative energy supplies. They have studied solar power and set up an environmental gardening club to demonstrate how much the school site can be a driving force for environmental protection and development.

Mark French, headteacher, said the school was bitterly disappointed by the executive's decision and hoped that there would be a change of heart by the council.

"It is a great shame that the county council has once again overlooked the needs of the children of Flushing and turned its back on a project that was well advanced in terms of expenditure and development. We were confident that the new school would have been a beacon for innovation and environmental sustainability."

The executive's decision, taken during a school holiday, without consultation with the school, ran contrary to the public promises the county had made to the community of Flushing over the past year.

Anne Embury, chair of governors, said that the governors believed it was unacceptable that a major project that would secure the school's future should be withdrawn at such an advanced stage.

"The decision appears to be completely contrary to the county council's published commitment to village schools. Under the Every Child Matters agenda, the county council is directed to provide appropriate and safe accommodation for all school children. As it stands they have not met this obligation and, unless the scheme is reinstated, the governors believe the county council will have failed in their duty of care to the children who attend Flushing Church of England Primary School.

"The school firmly believes that you cannot promise children something this significant that will change their lives and then simply take it away in the blink of an eye during a school holiday.

"Our hope is that the forthcoming call-in' will produce a positive outcome for the community of Flushing and give us the opportunity to work with the county council to provide a school that is fit for purpose, as was originally planned."

The plan had been to maximise the space available by making the building two storey with a hall and a staff room on top with a lift with three classrooms and an office on the ground floor.

The county council says the recommendation to withdraw Flushing from the capital programme is primarily based on the need for a strategic review and its withdrawal will allow the building of new classrooms at Penair School in Truro. They say this would represent best value in terms of the use of limited resources available to the authority. Arsonists burnt down one of the four Elliot huts on the Penair site forcing a change of heart.

"The future of the Flushing School building should be considered as part of the strategic planning for the primary capital programme," says the council in its report.

"If the executive reaffirms its decision to withdraw Flushing from the existing capital programme for this review and the school is likely to remain in its present accommodation for the foreseeable future, essential maintenance work should be carried out on the building to ensure that the school is in fit for purpose' condition."