Carlisle has taken another major step forward in its fightback from the floods – after the city’s biggest school revealed a £1.8m expansion plan.

Trinity School was one of the major landmarks left swamped in Storm Desmond, losing 40 per cent of its floor area.

Now, it is poised to put the dark days of December 2015 firmly behind it after being granted the money for a new sports hall.

It is set to get the new purpose-built facility following a successful bid to the Education Funding Agency. The move is a triumph for the city centre school which was left struggling for months without any access to sporting facilities following the floods of 14 months ago.

Co-headteachers Sheila Johnston and Derek Kay said they were “delighted” with the grant. It marks the third and final milestone of their flood resilience action plan.

“Students and staff haven’t had the kind of facilities we would want,” said Mrs Johnston.

“Staff lost everything. All the equipment was lost as well as all their resources and that has hampered our ability to deliver what we would want to.

“Right from the beginning we wanted to make sure, if flooding were to happen again, that we wouldn’t lose our provision for so long.”

The school leaders have campaigned for better measures to make the school more flood resilient since Storm Desmond.

A new hall – at the opposite end of the site on Strand Road – was part of a variety of measures to future-proof the school.

Meanwhile, the boilers, which were previously below ground level, and IT servers have been moved to a first floor.

This will mitigate some of the problems the school has experienced in past floods, meaning it will be able to get back on its feet more quickly following future unprecedented weather.

“The sporting facilities were just devastated. This is a real mark that there’s something positive at the end that will help make us much more resilient in future,” said Mrs Johnston.

“These are the things that from the beginning we set out as our aim.

“For us this is the final piece of that.”

Mr Kay added: “It was a pipe dream at the time. We never thought we would get as far as we got.

“As with most places in Carlisle, the final step will be stopping the water getting in.

“So we’re not finished yet but we’re a mile on from where we were.”

The school was supported by Carlisle MP John Stevenson who helped arrange a visit from the then-education secretary Nicky Morgan so she could see for herself the challenges being faced.

Mr Stevenson said: “I’ve known this has been their ambition for some time.

“It’s tremendous news for Trinity and the right course of action by the Government to support Trinity.

“It helps to move Trinity on and, indeed, our city on from the floods.”

The biggest impact on education was that a significant number of pupils were flooded at home and lost everything.

At school, the contaminated playing fields were also put out of use as well as the sports hall.

Equipment, work and other resources also fell victim to the floodwater – but the school pulled together to reopen on the site and got by.

An old classroom was converted into a changing room and a temporary hall was erected in March last year.

The new building, measuring about 12,000sq ft, will be located on grassland behind the leisure centre, away from the floodplain.

The old building, which was submerged by 7ft of water during the floods, after having also been flooded in 2005, will be demolished.

Work is set to start after Easter and the new hall is expected to be open by November.

The hall will have four changing rooms.

It will be available for private let for the wider community at evenings and weekends.