A Hereford city school will receive £1.5 million following an anonymous donation to the Church of England locally. The Bishop of Hereford says he is amazed and delighted.

The huge donation comes after talks with governors at Wyebridge Sports College in the South Wye area of the city about plans to seek Academy status with support from the Department of Education and Science and Hereford Local Authority.

Academies need sponsorship and the Church of England locally, the preferred sponsor of the Local Authority School, was seeking the one and half million needed for the process to continue.

"You can imagine my amazement and delight when I was offered the whole amount from an anonymous source through the Charities Aid Foundation," said Bishop Anthony Priddis, Bishop of Hereford. "The other astonishing thing about the offer is it comes with no strings attached and the donor or donors do not wish to have any say in the running of the school."

The Church of England nationally has already sponsored a number of academies but this will be the first in this part of the West Midlands.

With the funds in place, the second stage of the process, the feasibility stage, can be put into action with the Academy to open in September 2008 at the earliest, but more likely to be September 2009.

"The Academy will be part of the Diocesan Family of schools which already serves Herefordshire and South Shropshire. Unlike the other church secondary in Hereford the Academy will not have 'church places' as part of its admissions policy but will be open to all," said Bishop Priddis.

The donated money does not go to capital or revenue funding but to an endowment for the use of the Academy. It is expected that the school will specialise in Sports, Science and Health.

"The Academy will look to engage with the wider community as fully as possible and the parish of South Wye has been party to the negotiations," added the Bishop. "We are delighted to be party to this exciting development and see it as an endorsement of what we already achieve educationally and in so many other ways in this diocese."