TWO PRIVATE Hampshire schools are to be amalgamated as part of a £14m improvement scheme.

Test Valley Borough Council planning chiefs have given their consent to plans that will see Romsey's Embley Park school

and Nursling's Atherley school transformed.

A state-of-the-art junior school and a specialist teaching block and refectory will be built at the site of Embley Park school at the Grade II listed former home of Florence Nightingale.

Embley Park's head teacher David Chapman said the new hi-tech school and the modern facilities would be ready for use in September 2006.

The names Embley Park School and the Atherley will be replaced, with the combined school being called the Hampshire Collegiate School.

Mr Chapman said: "We are absolutely delighted this has gone through so swiftly. Test Valley has dealt with the application within three months. We involved planning officials from an early stage with the plans."

Mr Chapman said the whole area would benefit from the development, which will include a boating lake, new coach parking area and highway improvements in Gardeners Lane.

Recommending the application to borough councillors, planner Stuart Goodwill said the school was a valued asset to the Test Valley and the Embley Park site would allow it to be at the forefront of education.

Blackwater member and former borough mayor Tony Gentle said Britain's best-loved nurse - Florence Nightingale - would have been very proud of the plans for her childhood home.