A WORCESTER primary that has become one of Britain's first low-carbon' schools is to be officially opened by the minister for climate change and the environment next week.

Ian Pearson will visit Red Hill Primary School in Midhurst Close on Monday.

The rebuilt school has a range of features to minimise its emission of greenhouse gases and prepare for anything a warming planet can throw at it.

The features have led to it being named one of the UK's first low carbon, climate change-ready schools.

The measures includes harvesting rainwater for toilets, wider gutters with emergency overflows to channel sudden intense rainfall, low-carbon heating, and eaves and canopies to shade classrooms from intense summer sunlight.

The building is also more aerodynamic to protect it from increased wind speeds. Meanwhile, the school's computer suite has a heat pump that uses the additional heat generated by the machines to feed into the heating system, cooling the suite and heating the rest of the building.

Richard Williams, spokesman for the school, said: "Red Hill is the first building of its type to use a climate change adaptation process developed by the UK Climate Change Impacts Programme, funded by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

"This has been designed to help developers, policymakers and project managers understand the potential impacts of climate change and to use the planning process to adapt to it."

Robert Lewin-Jones, a principal architect at Worcestershire County Council and the project leader, said: "The design has been driven by educational needs and the need to reduce the environmental impact of the building, including ground source heating and choice of building materials.

"In terms of the impact of the building on future generations of children, we hope we have a school that it is better prepared for climate change, while being a lower contributor to greenhouse gases, and where the children will learn lessons about climate change issues from the building itself and the design of its grounds."

The school was completed in April and will be officially opened by Mr Pearson at 11am on Monday.