Two schools in Newhall have been revealed by Derbyshire County Council as running on deficits over £140,000 - with one in debt to the tune of almost £150,000.

But William Allitt School (£148,774 in debt) and Fairmeadows Primary School, in Fairfield Crescent, (£141,464 in debt) have said they will put together plans to get themselves back on track over multiple years instead of one.

The County Council has published a round-up of schools which plan to balance their budgets over more than one year with aims to get out of the red.

William Allitt School, based in Sunnyside, requires a complete rebuild due to the condition of its buildings, largely constructed in the 1960s, its chair of governors Steve Frost has said.

He says the cost of a rebuild – between £17 million and £25 million – would be cheaper than repairing the school in the long run.

The county council does not have the funding to support this and has been pleading with government to give it more money for school repairs and rebuilds for years, along with South Derbyshire MP Heather Wheeler.

It is set to balance its books by 2022.

William Allitt was served an academy order in 2014 by central government due to its falling standards but no academy trust has taken on the project due to the upfront costs needed to repair or rebuild the school, Mr Frost told the Local Democracy Reporting Service in 2018.

This has left the school in limbo, but even if the school moves to an academy, Derbyshire taxpayers and the county council will be left with the bill for its budget deficit.

Since 2014 these deficits left behind by Derbyshire schools have cost the county council, and taxpayers, more than £1 million.

William Allitt has a capacity for 945 pupils, which had fallen to 715 by October 2018 and is set to drop to 607 by this October, leaving it a third empty.

One in 10 of Derbyshire schools are running on a deficit while eight have amassed budgets a total of nearly £2 million in the red.

The council says 32 schools are now running on deficits, making up nearly 11 per cent of the 298 schools the council remains responsible for - with many converting to academies due to budget issues.

It calls this "broadly positive".

In August 2018, the council had said 27 schools out of the then 342 under its control were running on deficits (7.9 per cent).

Of the 32 schools now running on a deficit, seven have put together plans to get themselves back on track over multiple years instead of one, due to their scale.

These seven are:

•Arkwright Primary School, east of Chesterfield (£19,743 in debt)

•Ashbourne Hill Top Primary School (£21,522 in debt)

•Ripley Junior School (£53,588 in debt)

•Charlesworth Primary School (£57,782 in debt)

•Fairmeadows Primary School, Newhall (£141,464 in debt)

•William Allitt School, Newhall (£148,774 in debt)

•Glossopdale Community School (£724,647 in debt)