A £1M nursery project for a deprived area of Kidderminster has been saved from a financial crisis after council chiefs intervened and took it over from a leading charity.

The scheme for a centre to provide 40 full day-care places at Birchen Coppice Middle School is now on course to open in March next year after 12 months of "severe delays."

Worcestershire County Council had to enter into an "urgent contractual agreement to ensure that the project did not terminate" after the charity set to steer the project pulled out.

The charity, NCH, was due to sign a contract with a builder in March but declined, giving council chiefs less than two weeks to take on the mantle so work could begin on schedule.

The group, previously known as The National Children's Home, pulled out over fears that it could - in the future - have to pay VAT for the project, from which it is currently exempt.

The council had to take over as there was a "real risk that the funding could be redistributed elsewhere in the country if it does not go ahead very soon," according to a report shown to councillors last week.

Such was the urgency of the handover that it was "impractical" to ask councillors for permission.

The council's cabinet has since agreed that "the right course of action had been taken so that work could begin as soon as possible to ensure that this important project to regenerate a very disadvantaged area of the country was not jeopardised."

The scheme is known as the Wyre Forest Sure Start Programme and will be run through a private company. First Class Nursery.

It will be built on the middle school site, in Woodbury Road.

The council has put £150,000 towards the £992,000 project, which will also get Government and lottery cash.

A further grant will pay for the upkeep of the building.

Problems finding a suitable plot meant building work did not start in 2004 as planned.