A DEVON County councillor is hoping Devon MPs will join together and fight for more Government funding for the county so vital projects can go-ahead this year.

Bill Cann, councillor for the Hatherleigh and Chagford areas, said he was delighted West Devon and Torridge MP John Burnett had joined the campaign to win funding for Northlew and Ashbury Primary School, reported last week in the Okehampton Times, but there was a also a bigger campaign needed to get more funds into the county as a whole.

'It will be Devon County Council who will be providing money for developments at the school which are urgently needed,' he said. 'But the authority's budget is very stretched this coming year — the county council needs £36-million to keep all the services it provides at the moment going.'

Northlew and Ashbury Primary School has stepped up its campaign for two new classrooms following a second OFSTED report in four years criticising its lack of PE provision. The school wants to make its existing resource area and classrooms into a big school hall which will be adequate for gym lessons.

Mr Cann said he had been working hard over the last eight months with the headteacher and school governors to provide plans and obtain money for these improvements.

Mr Cann has organised a meeting with the county council's education chairman John Hart to attend the school in February and he hoped this would be a major step to acquire the necessary cash.

'I hope that John Burnett will persuade other Devon MPs to support adequate funding for all these kinds of projects because Devon desperately needs more Government funds to deliver vital rural services and projects,' he added.