CHILDREN at Lymington's Roman Catholic Primary School are set to move into their new £1.5m home before Christmas - with a £4,000 present from the town council.

Members of Lymington and Pennington Town Council heard from the school's chairman of governors Tony O'Connell that the move to a brand new school in Pennington is now just weeks away.

After he and head teacher Irene Craddick had received a cheque for £4,000 from the council for playground equipment, Mr O'Connell said: "Our builders have informed us that they will be able to hand over the new school in November.

"The hope is that we will begin moving the children into the new school at the beginning of December."

Mr O'Connell thanked the council for all the help it had given the school and commented: "Without the help of the town council and of New Forest District Council and Hampshire County Council we would not be moving into our brand new school."

Mrs Craddick recalled that the project was started 35 years ago and added: "It is just amazing for us that we are coming to the end of this project."

On the money received from the town council, she said: "The children are researching the equipment we can have in the school and I can assure you every penny will be well spent."

The scheme ran into trouble earlier this year when the initial builders TSL Construction hit financial problems and called in the receivers. But the work was taken over by H N Edwards and the job is now almost finished.