A businessman who was once linked with taking over Norwich City Football Club is ready to donate a further £2.2m to create new school places for Norfolk children with autism.
Norfolk County Council previously agreed to accept a £2.2m donation from the Cullum Family Trust, to help create two specialist resource bases for autistic children at Acle Academy and Alderman Peel High School in Wells-next-the-Sea.
And the trust, set up by Norwich-born businessman Peter Cullum, CBE, has now offered a further £2.2m towards another two Cullum Centres in primary schools.
One would be at Kinsale Junior School in Hellesdon, with the location for the fourth centre yet to be decided.
At a meeting of Reform-led Norfolk County Council's cabinet next week, councillors are expected to agree to accept the donation and to start the process of working with the trusts which would run the new centres.
Acle Academy, Alderman Peel and Kinsale are all run by the Wensum Trust.
The county council would need to cover the remaining costs of the two new centres, expected to be about £2.5m.
Officers, in a report to come before councillors, said: “The offer of investment will bring significant benefit to Norfolk’s most vulnerable children by delivering new provision that will support their needs better and closer to home.”
The new specialist resource bases would be created in association with the National Autistic Society.
Education officials at County Hall have been wrestling with increased demand and complexity of needs among children with special educational needs and disabilities in recent years, with soaring bills to transport them to and from schools.
The creation of bases at mainstream schools aims to provide places nearer to where children live, so they do not have to travel long distances to special schools.
The cabinet will meet to make its decision on the Cullum Family Trust's latest donation on Friday, November 13.
But Carrow Road bosses said a further £16m would be needed to buy out shares, £16m to pay off debts and another £4m to repay loans from the existing directors - a total of at least £56m.
The talks went no further.
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