THE plan to create a pioneering education campus was the deciding factor in convincing the Government to approve Swindon's private finance initiative (PFI) bid.

Schools minister, Baroness Catherine Ashton, said the sheer imagination behind the proposal made it stand out from the rest.

She personally approved the award of £58m of PFI credits to Swindon Council, which will be used to appoint a private company to build, maintain and service eight new schools in North Swindon.

That includes rebuilding the crumbling Hreod Parkway School on its south site in Akers Way and moving Uplands and Brimble Hill special schools to a new 32-acre campus near Blunsdon St Andrew.

The special schools will be accompanied by a new secondary and primary school, a vocational centre and community and sporting facilities.

On top of that, the £58 million will pay for a further three primary schools in the northern area, and the maintenance of Abbey Meads and Catherine Wayte primary schools.

The council had ambitiously bid for £80 million, but the full amount is rarely awarded and the shortfall means that only one school will be removed from the building programme.

Baroness Ashton was particularly impressed with the innovative plans for the vocational centre, which is modelled on a similar centre in San Diego, California.

The idea is that selected students learn in a workplace-style environment rather than through traditional teaching methods.

Baroness Ashton said: "Swindon's bid stood out as particularly exciting because of the idea of a learning campus bringing together all types of school on one site.

"It is a fantastic achievement for Swindon to come up with something so imaginative I think it is the only one of its kind in the country.

"To go to the extent of researching a scheme in America and modelling part of it on that is also impressive."

It will be about a year before a private firm is appointed and the building work will take place over the next 10 years.

Due to its serious disrepair, Hreod Parkway is thought to be the first priority. Headteacher Andrew Fleet, speaking of his relief that the bid had been approved, said a target opening date is already penned for September 2005.

"This was absolutely vital," he said. "We are working with time-lapsed buildings which urgently need significant investment or replacement and we can now see a clear way forward to change that.

"If we hadn't been successful in this bid, we would have had a real headache in finding the necessary investment to do the work. I am very, very happy and it is thanks to the efforts of the council officers that we have reached this stage."

Swindon Council chief executive and acting chief education officer, Paul Doherty, said: "We knew our bid was a strong one but there was strong competition nationally for new school proposals and the money available was oversubscribed.

"I think we succeeded because of the combined efforts of everybody in Swindon. Although this is great news, there is still a great deal of work left to do."

North Swindon MP Michael Wills, who supported the bid, said: "This imaginative new scheme should be a beacon to the rest of the country and it points to a positive new future for education in Swindon as a whole."

Swindon's bid was one of 21 approved by the DfES yesterday, equating to more than £939 million worth of PFI credits.

The first PFI school opened in Dorset in 1999. Since then, 30 new, rebuilt, or refurbished schools have been opened under PFI. By March 2004, investment in school PFI schemes since 1997 will be £3 billion.