AN £80 MILLION bid for new schools in North Swindon could founder again, deepening Swindon's education crisis.

The Department for Education and Skills has warned that the plan only has a one in four chance of success.

But the money, which would be created through a private finance initiative, is seen as vital to cater for the extra demand on school places that will be created by the northern expansion of Swindon that could see the creation of 10,000 new homes.

The deadline for the new bid is December 17 and senior Swindon Council officers have been holding a series of meetings with the DfES to give the bid the best chance of success.

But although the DfES has praised the quality of the bid, it has warned that there are likely to be three failed bids for every one that succeeds.

Mike Lusty, the council's director of education and community, said: "Competition will be strong, but we remain confident that Swindon's bid for exceptional basic need will be recognised.

"The original bid that we put in was a good bid, but we were told that more work needed to be done on it. We have been working closely with the DfES and we are confident that we have a very strong case.

"But we have started working on a contingency plan to outline what action we would take if the bid fails. This includes creating additional accommodation for schooling, and pupils travelling elsewhere."

Given the statistically slim chance of success, the education authority has been warned to prepare for the worst. Government inspectors who effectively failed Swindon's edu- cation authority in September say that the contingency plan is needed in case the bid fails.

The document recommends: "Should the private-public partnership not come to fruition, publish a contingency plan which assures that sufficient places will be available when required and in premises that are at least satisfactory."

A copy of the bid document was considered by the council's education and culture commission last night.

This latest bid for permission to go ahead with the private finance initiative follows an earlier £28 million bid by the council, which was rejected in December last year.

At the time, the council was told that the bid had been rejected because other applications were deemed to be more worthy.

The council hopes that the fresh bid has more diversity and integrates better with the community.

If the funding is secured, it will be combined with £11 million from the council to pay for the building of two new secondary schools, five primary schools and two special schools. Work would start in 2003 and continue throughout the decade.

It is possible that £4.5 million spent by the council on building Catherine Wayte and Abbey Meads schools in the area could also be recouped.

The new scheme could allow an extra 500 secondary school pupils to be catered for each year.

Under the plan, Hreod Parkway School would be completely rebuilt south of Akers Way and a new school would form the hub of a new education campus near Blunsdon called Haydon Sector three.

This campus would also include one of the primary schools, two special schools and new community and sporting facilities.

Under the public private partnership scheme, a private company would be put in charge of managing and maintaining the 11 new school sites and the council would effectively rent the buildings from the company.

Andrew Fleet, headteacher at the crumbling Hreod Parkway School, said the bid was crucial to his school's recovery from its Ofsted failure earlier this year. The Advertiser revealed yesterday that his school ws in urgent need of repair work.

He said: "This is absolutely critical for Swindon now to be able to cope with the northern expansion. We are very hopeful of success this time and hopeful that the Government will recognise how important it is for us."