Western School Division received some very good news Thursday from the province. The new kindergarten to Grade 8 school the division has been lobbying for over the past several years is going into the design stage.

"It's fantastic news," says Western board chair Brian Fransen. "There isn't a single school division in Manitoba that had less space per student than we did and it has been that way for a while."

Morden has seen significant population growth over the past 10 years which has placed a lot of pressure on classroom space for quite some time.

The province announced yesterday it was adding $100 million dollars more this year for education capital investments as it tries to speed up its promise to build 20 new schools by as much as five years.

No timeline has been provided on when Morden's new school will eventually be up and running, according to Fransen, but feels the province has been pushing hard to finish these projects.

"I know that they have been working very quickly on some of the other school projects that were started over the last couple of years, so we're optimistic the timelines will be very advantageous for the community."

The new school would be located in the northwest part of Morden on property the division purchased back in 2014.

Meanwhile, Thursday's funding announcement also included a three-classroom expansion and construction of a new shop for the vocational pipefitting program at Morden Collegiate.