RTN11, I hate to be cheeky here, but could you please elaborate on your comments on cost? I trust you know what you are talking about, but could you please explain why you feel £5000 isn't enough for hour building and why the CPL and I/R would cost so much more than I thought.
You need to build at least 100 hours. If you can find someone who will rent you an airworthy aircraft for £50 an hour all in then fair enough, a far more realistic figure is £120+
The way a school sets out it's prices in their brochure is advantageous to them. It takes into account only the bare minimum.
I forget the exact figures, but a CPL is 25 hours, around 10-15 of which can be done in a simple aircraft which is how their price is set. In reality you will want to do far more time in the more complex Arrow or whatever, and this will ultimately cost more.
For the IR the same applies. I believe up to 10 hours can be done in an FNTP1, which may be what their "from" price includes at around £110 an hour. This is rubbish, and no more than 7 hours will be of any use, so you will move straight onto the more expensive FNPT2 (£160/hr+), and when you're ahead of the ability of that you will want to move onto the far more expensive aircraft at £400+ per hour. This will all add to the bare minimum price quoted.
One last thing, a lot of schools I have seen simply offer the aircraft price x the number of hours needed for IR. The CAA have been very clear that taxi time will no longer count as IR time, so you need to add 10 mins to each flight, at the full cost of the aircraft in a Seneca will be around £80 per flight.
There are many ways a school will entice you to part with money that you may not realise until you are fully committed, then it's either pay the balance or leave with nothing. I'm not putting either of these schools down, just saying that in general you have to be careful and fully research things before parting with the cash.