THE cost of the maintenance backlog in Bradford's schools has risen by over £6.6 million in just seven months.

An unsuccessful bid for government money to re-build four Bradford Schools is one of the reasons the council's school backlog maintenance cost rose from £38,788,675 in October to £45,409,252 in the latest estimates.

Just over £12.4 million of this cost has been classed as "priority one" - the most urgent repairs. This is up from £11.1 million in October.

Meanwhile, £12.8 million is priority two, £12.2 priority three and £7.8 million priority four.

A report on the projected costs to bring the district's schools up to scratch will go before the council's Children's Services scrutiny committee on Tuesday.

A Bradford Council spokesman said another reason for the rise was the fact the previous figure was calculated just after the summer holidays, when the bulk of maintenance work was carried out. The latest figure may decrease after works are carried out over the upcoming holiday.

In February the government announced that the eight Bradford Schools nominated for the government's Priority School Building Programme had been unsuccessful in their bids. They included Queensbury School, Lilycroft Primary School in Manningham, Shipley CofE Primary School and Sandal Primary School in Baildon.

The report to committee members says the schools: "Have now been re-included into the calculation of the overall backlog maintenance."

Councillor Susan Hinchliffe, executive for children's services at the council, said: "We were very disappointed not to feature in the Government's Priority School Building Programme last year. That money would have been used on eight of our schools which needed the most urgent works. If you combine that with the 90 per cent reduction in Formula capital then you can see that Bradford's been badly hit.

"We need to keep talking to the Department for Education to make sure they understand the challenges we have and if a funding opportunity comes along then I want us to be in pole position to receive the support we need."

Councillor Debbie Davies, Conservative spokesman for education, said: "It does seem like a frighteningly large figure, but if you look at it some things can probably wait.

"Obviously it is important schools have working boilers and vital things like that - they are vitally important.

"But you wonder if some of the works taken into account in this figure are just wish lists, or schools saying 'it would be nice if we could do this.' Children don't necessarily notice if a wall hasn't been painted recently."

A Department for Education spokesperson said: "Bradford Council received £39.8 million of funding between 2011 and 2015 to address condition needs in its schools, and in February we announced a further £9.3 million for Bradford in 2015-16.

“Alongside the priority schools building programme, we have also made school condition allocations for the next three years. These allocations reflect the condition of school buildings; meaning those schools which missed out can be confident their needs will be reflected in the funding we make available to their council, trust or voluntary aided partnership.”

The Committee meets at Bradford City Hall at 4.30pm.