Council leaders have been urged to make sure delayed works to fix a leaking school roof are an “absolute priority”.

Oakwood Primary School has been waiting for Southampton City Council to sort the work.

In March, councillors were told the work, which is yet to start, would be finished by around the end of September.

Conservative group leader Cllr Peter Baillie said now he had been told the scheme at the site in Sandpiper Road, Lordswood, was not going to be completed until late January next year.

Cllr Baillie said: “Since the date for completion has now gone back four months since the last council meeting, I wonder if we can make sure it’s an absolute priority that that one doesn’t go back any further because they are now looking at having another winter with a leaky roof, which none of us want, and it is a concern that it is delayed so long.”

Speaking at the city council meeting on May 15, Cllr Alex Winning, cabinet member for children and learning, said: “There was a value engineering exercise that concluded. The result of that was financial uplift was required. That is now going back through to get that signed off. That is where the delay came from.”

The cabinet member said the original quotes from contractors dated back to September 2022 and inflation had pushed the price up.

Cllr Winning said: “The costs have gone up but it is still going to happen.

“It will still start this summer and it is scheduled to take 29 weeks.

“I think it was always planned to start this summer, it is just going to be starting later in the summer because they have had to go back to bridge that gap with the uplift that’s required.”

The Labour councillor said signing off on the increased cost was going through a process. He added: “As far as I’m concerned it needs to happen.”