A sports and leisure hall is to be built at Cams Hill School for the benefit of pupils and the local community.

The £400,000 complex will mean an end to PE activities having to be held in the school's dining-room and assembly hall.

Borough councillors approved the ambitious scheme yesterday. Permission was also granted for a £250,000 sports pavilion and cricket square next to the school's playing field, which will be the new home for Portchester Cricket Club.

Head teacher David Wilmot told councillors his school in Shearwater Avenue was just one of seven across Hampshire without a sports hall, adding: "Our purpose is to provide a high-quality facility for our 1,000 children. When the weather is bad, groups of pupils - 60 a day - have to sit in a classroom because we do not have a sports hall."

The sports hall should be completed by September.

The school has taken out a ten-year mortgage to pay for the project and received a £20,000 grant from the Princes Trust.

Planning permission was granted on the condition that the building was screened by trees. Councillors also insisted that the lower half of the building was painted dark red and the upper half sky blue to fit in with its surroundings.