A SCHOOL governor who died tragically is set to be remembered as part of a £1 million refurbishment project which will benefit the whole of Horsforth.

Leeds City Council has confirmed its backing plans by Education Leeds to provide much-needed new classrooms and changing rooms for Horsforth School.

Until now the Lee Lane East school, which otherwise enjoys good sports facilities, has had to struggle on with unsuitable changing rooms located at the other side of the building and on the first floor.

A popular choice for parents, the school has also suffered in recent years from a lack of sufficient classrooms. Education Leeds now plans to tackle both problems by building a self-contained, two-storey extension next to the school gym which will be available to the public in the evenings.

The current changing area, meanwhile, will be transformed to provide four new classrooms and three new state-of-the-art computer suites which the school also hopes to open up to the wider community.

Head teacher Steve Jex said former school governor and deputy chief coroner for West Yorkshire, John Brodwell, who died of a pulmonary embolism in July, would be honoured when it came to the naming of the new IT area.

"We're absolutely delighted with this," he said. "Because the school's been massively over subscribed for a number of years now and we've had some major accommodation problems which haven't been helped by the fact that our changing rooms are upstairs.

"This will give us a new block with new facilities downstairs including the changing rooms, a sports office and a fitness centre.

"Upstairs will have new class rooms and IT facilities including a cyber caf and projector room - we're hoping to call it the John Brodwell Learning Centre because John, who was chairman of governors, worked very hard to get this off the ground."

The new extension will also house a reception, storage areas and toilets as well as separate changing facilities for teachers.

Work is due to begin within the next four months and to be completed by September, 2004.

Leeds City Councillor Judith Blake said: "The new classrooms and computer suites will relieve the pressure and create a better learning environment for both teachers and pupils enable us to provide high quality education for all. The school also has excellent sports facilities but the present changing rooms are simply not suitable and their position contravenes health and safety regulations.

"The new changing rooms will be closer to the gymnasium and will enable the facilities to be used by local people in the evenings and at weekends."

Horsforth MP Paul Truswell, who has helped the school's bids for extra resources, which included money for a new sixth form centre which opened last year, said he was also glad to hear of the new project, which will cost just under £1 million.

He said: "This is great news for an excellent school that continues to go from strength to strength despite some of its accommodation problems, and which deserves the best possible facilities to reward its success."