A Hampshire special needs school is having to cut classes and see staff leave because of a £100,000 row with council bosses.

Vermont School, an educational facility for children with special needs based in Bassett, will have one less class and four fewer staff members from September because of £105,000 that has been reset from their budget.

The school claim that after they were given an additional £105,000 in 2015, and that the extra funding was going to be permanent, according to the Southampton City Council.

However, when the money was not given at the start of this academic year, they were subsequently told in November that the money was not permanent, resulting in the school’s forecast deficit.

As a result, four members of staff will not have their contracts renewed, with five classes being reduced to four from the next academic year.

The school also raised the issue in a letter, dated January 16, addressed to the council’s Chief Executive Dawn Baxendale, Leader Simon Letts and the service lead for education and early years, Jo Cassey.

According to the school, none of the councillors initially responded.

Adrian Smith, governor at Vermont School said: “We simply wanted to know from the council what changed and who made the decision. We had the indication that the money would be permanent and between then and autumn last year, somebody must have made a decision.

“We have to budget for each year and we didn’t know that this funding wasn’t going to come through again, so we had to have a meeting to discuss our options.

“The letter we wrote wasn’t even acknowledged by the councillors and now four staff members on full-time contracts won’t be renewed. We will still have 32 pupils, but with one less class.”

The school say that a letter received from the council states that ‘the offer was made without appropriately identifying the additional resources and without appropriate authority under the council’s procedures’.

The letter goes on to say ‘as a consequence we have had to reset your budget to its original base’.

When contacted by the Daily Echo for a response, the council did not offer a comment.