A PRIMARY school is celebrating after securing funding to install much-needed school play equipment after the existing structure was condemned.

St Nicholas’ Primary School in Marston, Oxford, was awarded £10,000 after applying to the Big Lottery Fund grant award scheme.

The grant will be used to install a new ‘trim trail’ outdoor play facility to promote physical activity for the school children.

Headteacher Rachel Crouch welcomed the news and said that she was ‘absolutely delighted’ by the grant which would secure the future of the play area.

She said: “It is just amazing, £10,000 is so much. We are just over the moon.

“The trim trail was about 17 years old and it had been condemned as being unsafe, and before that it was well used, this being a large school of around 485 children.

“Everybody was up in arms about it. It was condemned and the youngsters had very little play equipment, and especially for some of the autistic children who really enjoy the facility.

“We had to tape off the condemned trim trail and when we looked at replacing it we had a quote of around £15,000 to get a new one installed.”

In order to raise the money for the project the school launched a campaign of fundraising to secure the large amount needed to replace the trim trail.

What began 18 months ago saw a number of fundraisers including the summer fete which also contributed to the fundraising target.

Ultimately the school managed to raise a third of the required amount and secured £5,000 towards their goal, £10,000 short of what was required.

Mrs Crouch said that she first applied to the lottery grant after she realised the final total to replace the equipment was simply too far out of reach for the school.

She added: “We had only managed to pocket £5,000 and there was absolutely no way we could raise the rest with our budget.”

When she heard the news this week that the remaining funds had been found and announced it to her pupils she said that the children were over the moon with the news.

She said: “They screamed when they were told about it. They are just so excited about it.

“It is just really good news because there is a limit to what play equipment you can get, councils can no longer afford play equipment because it is seen as an extra.”

Work is expected to begin as early as this week on the new trim trail which will take two weeks of work before it will be up and running.

Across the whole of the south east there were 44 other projects which were awarded funding for various community projects, totalling £1.2 million in lottery grants.