PLANS to rebuild a secondary school in Southampton and increase its size by 300 places have finally been given the green light.

The city council's cabinet tonight agreed the £16m project to ‎rebuild Bitterne Park Secondary School.

The plans to increase Bitterne Park's size from 1,500 students to 1,800 were first revealed in the Daily Echo, with ‎school bosses describing the building as "crumbling in places".

School bosses were twice told the funding for the work had been withdrawn - but then the Government agreed the £16m package through its Priority Schools Building programme.

Last night the city council's cabinet agreed the work, which should be complete in time for the start of the academic year in September 2017.

Speaking after the meeting last night, Labour education chief Dan Jeffery said: "It's really important that we start setting out very clearly how we deal with the increase in pupil numbers across the city.

"This is the first step, not only for the rebuild of the school which is really important after the Government cut the Building Schools for the Future programme, but we must have in our mind the need to create more school places."