Sunderland MP Bridget Phillipson stresses Government's commitment to building new schools for city's children

The Houghton and Sunderland South MP spoke exclusively to the Echo whilst officially opening New Farringdon Academy’s state of the art £21m new building.

She said: “We have faced a really big backlog where it comes to rebuilding and also the condition of lots of schools. We’ve seen the RAAC (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) crisis where schools were crumbling but it also goes beyond that.

“Lots of schools are just beyond their design life. Back in 2010 when the Conservative government were first elected, they scrapped Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme.

“This means that over the last decade or so we have not been investing in the way that we should have done in our schools.

“It’s why in the budget we announced in October significant additional investment (£2.3bn) going into schools capital to make sure we can rebuild and refurbish schools

“The investment that we can make in school buildings shows we really value children’s education and everything they can go on to achieve.”

Farringdon Community Academy’s old building had reached a state which was no longer fit for purpose, with headteacher Jordan Bedford highlighting how the new and old facilities are “like night and day”.

After opening the new building, Ms Phillipson was keen to stress the transformative impact such a facility can have.

She added: “Fantastic facilities can make such a difference to children’s learning. Having a great building and first-class facilities makes a big difference to children’s aspirations.

“When facilities are rundown and crumbling that also really damages learning and life chances.”