A PLAN to build a new hall and classrooms at St Nicholas Primary School, Bromham, near Devizes, have been unveiled.

Parents and villagers attended an open meeting at the school last week to hear details of the £330,000 project.

Most of the money will be put up by Wiltshire County Council, which is using specific Government grants allocated to it.

Parents and villagers were told they would have to find £30,000 towards the project. The school's Parent Teacher Association already has £13,000 set aside.

The existing school is housed in a Victorian building and there are also two mobile classrooms.

The new plan includes getting rid of a 30-year-old double mobile classroom, building an extension to a classroom, and creating another classroom within the main building.

A new hall will also be needed as the present school hall is considered too small for PE classes. Each week pupils go to the nearby Bromham Social Centre for classes.

Headteacher Tim Heath told the meeting of the shortcomings of the school accommodation and why the improvements were needed.

He said for years the school governors had wanted to develop the school but a lack of money had held them back.

County council education officer Tom Lindsay said funding was available from the Government under its New Deal for Schools initiative to replace and improve school buildings.

He said in the next 12 months, Wiltshire would have £5 million to spend on buildings and the year after that £8 million.

He said the council's highest priority was to help schools that have no proper hall.

Parent governor Nick Jennings said the plans would result in a loss of some of the play area for the children, but he thought the benefit would be much improved facilities. He said the new hall could be used by the community out of school hours.

Mr Heath said: "The PTA is astonishingly supportive and so is the village. The village's support for the school surpasses everything I have seen. It is not beyond us to raise the remaining £17,000."

Following the meeting, Mr Heath said he was pleased with the response of people who welcomed the project.

He said he was confident the extension to the Victorian building would not be an eyesore. "The double mobile classroom is in a poor state of repair and children have to dash across to the main school building for assembly and to use the computers.

"But the main shortcoming is the hall because we waste time walking across to the social centre. We manage and the children get a good deal with PE but they could get a better deal."

The county council plans to appoint architects in the autumn to prepare plans of the new buildings. Building work could start in July 2003.