This month seen the scrapping of the Building Schools for the future scheme, the Education Secretary Michael grove said 719 school revamps which have already been signed up will now be terminated, with a further 123 to be viewed by a case-by-case basis.

The 706 schools in the existing BSF programme which have reached financial close will go ahead, but officials will see what money can be saved within each project.

Mr Gove said: “The Building Schools for the Future scheme has been responsible for about one third of all this department’s capital spending.

“But throughout its life it has been characterised by massive overspends tragic delays, botched construction projects and needless bureaucracy.”

He called the scheme “dysfunctional” and “unnecessarily bureaucratic”, with nine “meta stages”.

He added: “It is perhaps no surprise that it can take almost three years to negotiate the bureaucratic process of BSF before a single builder is engaged or brick is laid.”

180 schools have been rebuilt or revamped since the programme and one school in particular has truly benefited from the scheme achieving 78.18% score from BREEAM making it the most sustainable school in the UK. Let’s hope the 231 schools about to begin work can live up to this potential and that the government’s cost cutting will not affect the children’s learning environment.

1,100 school who signed up for the scheme, investing their time, money and energy into drawing up plans for redevelopment have seen their hopes dashed by this move.

The plan was for all of England’s 3,500 schools were to be revamped by 2023, it was supposed to replace out dated buildings which have no place in modern education.

Ed Balls Shadow Education Secretary said “Today is a black day for our country’s schools”

He added that he and his Labour colleagues would fight to “save our new schools”.

Christine Blower, the General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, was very unhappy with the decision and said, “Poor learning environments have a negative impact on the education of children and young people.”

“School buildings were woefully run down prior to Labour coming to power in 1997 and while much has been done to improve them there is still a lot more to do.”

I know everyone with in the industry will have an opinion on this, whether you’re a supplier of building construction materials or a UK builder. I for one am opposed to the scrapping of the scheme, it sends a very direct message that saving money is more important than using environmentally friendly materials and that construction materials which may be hazardous to the environment are not a concern for this government. I may be a little bias, but I think eco building and reusing and recycling building materials to lower our carbon footprint is of the utmost importance.