RUNDOWN Stourport High School "will not survive" until 2011, when vital cash to knock it down and rebuild it becomes available, its headteacher has warned.

The Minster Road school desperately needed a £20 million cash injection before 2011, when the district is set to receive a £110 million Government payout for all its high schools, Liz Quinn said.

All high schools are facing the delay despite taking on two more year groups to become secondary schools from 2007.

Building work for the schools is unlikely to be finished until 2013 - seven years after the historic changeover.

Nearby middle schools - which will be axed when the new system is adopted - will be used to take up any overspill of pupils.

Mrs Quinn said: "The LEA have been and visited me recently and they are very concerned about the state of my building, as am I. It will not survive until 2011, I don't think, so they are looking at what they can do to help us."

Outside funding must be found to get work started, she said.

"It is getting towards a bit of a crisis point. The school is falling apart. It is past its shelf life and all we can do, really, is repair it."

Leaking roofs and crumbling ceilings were common problems at the site, she explained. A complete rebuild, with a facilities including a theatre and a gym, was needed.

Mrs Quinn said: "We need to look at having a brand new school for the kids and families of Stourport and it has to happen before 2011.

"We have got to find another way and we have got to be more vociferous because I don't think we can sit back until 2011."

She added: "I am not going to rest until I get it."

The cash is to come from the Government's Building Schools for the Future programme. Worcestershire County Council is set to receive its allocation in 2011 and has Wyre Forest as its top priority.

Head of education policy development at the council, Colin Weedon, said: "Stourport High is one of the schools that will certainly need a complete replacement and clearly it would be in everybody's interests to do it sooner rather than later."