A £40m-plus wishlist for new special needs schools has been drawn up by Swindon council.

It includes the replacement of the decrepit Crowdys Hill school and the relocation St Luke’s, with its land then to be sold off.

The build programme is to cope with the increasing number of children with special educational needs in Swindon, which is set to rise from 925 today to 1,039 in the next six years.

An application has been submitted to government for millions of pounds needed to rebuild 129-pupil Crowdys Hill, listed as costing £13m.

The council has set itself a timetable for opening the reconstructed school in September 2014, with space for 140 pupils. The 70-pupil St Luke’s school is also been earmarked for wholesale relocation at a cost of £13m.

There is also a planned relocation of special needs education from Stratton Education Centre and Riverside at a cost of £5m, and a 60-place £11m school in the planned Eastern Villages housing area.

New facilities cannot come soon enough for Crowdys Hill, which deals with children with a range of conditions from autism to attention deficit disorder.

Its roof is prone to leaking, many classrooms are too small and the corridors are not wide enough for wheelchair-bound pupils.

Headteacher Pete Crockett said it is one of a raft of schools hurriedly thrown together in the 1960s.

“They were built in a rush to be quite honest, and they weren’t expected to last this long,” he said.

“There are a lot of schools in a lot of boroughs that were 60s builds, notorious for their flat roofs with all of those challenges. They’ve outgrown their usefulness.

“The council has recognised the problem and is trying to do something about it.

“It would make a fantastic difference.”

It is not known yet where it will be rebuilt but it could be next to Nova Hreod or Greendown schools.

Coun David Renard, Cabinet Member for Children Services, who branded the school “not fit for purpose”, said the whole build programme is dependent on central government cash.

“The council’s budgets are under pressure, and we wouldn’t be able to find £40m from other sources,” he said.

He is unsure when the bid for Crowdys Hill will be approved or rejected, but hopefully this year.