CAMPAIGNERS for state pre-school places in Ilkley are celebrating after education bosses agreed to provide a nursery at Ashlands Primary School.

Members of Bradford Council's executive committee gave the plan the green light this week after years of campaigning in the town.

Parish councillor Mike Lynes, the chairman of governors at Ashlands, said he had been trying for ten years to persuade Bradford Council to give Ilkley free school places in line with the rest of the district.

Now Coun Lynes, who had previously taken two petitions to City Hall about the problem, feels the long campaign has finally been successful.

"I have been trying for ten years and I have remained optimistic - I always knew it would happen sometime," said Coun Lynes.

He added: The benefit that it will bring to Ilkley by having nursery education free for children three years old will be absolutely wonderful."

Room for the nursery places will be added to the Leeds Road school when it undergoes a rebuilding programme to cope with the extra numbers needed because of the Bradford schools reorganisation programme.

Coun Lynes said: "We are going to extend the school by 50 per cent and it will be completed by Easter next year."

As part of the expansion, one of the rooms will be turned into a nursery and the total number of children at the school will rise from 200 to around 400.

Earlier this year there was uproar in the town when space for a pre-school playgroup was omitted from fresh plans for the new All Saints Primary School in Skipton Road. Education bosses had been accused of reneging on a promise to provide state-funded nursery places in Ilkley.

Ilkley parish councillor Pat Stevenson, who has also been a long-time campaigner for nursery places in the town, said: "I feel if we get nursery provision in the Wharfe Valley it is going to be a benefit and I am very, very pleased."

But Coun Stevenson said she was unhappy that the chance to build a nursery at the new school was going to be missed.

Coun Stevenson said: "It is a tragedy that a new school is being built in Ilkley in the 21st century without a nursery. We know they have got serious funding problems in Bradford with the reorganisation, and providing a nursery at the Ashlands site would be a lot cheaper.

"But just getting it is a breakthrough - it has taken a lot of hard work," said Coun Stevenson.

Last year the council carried out a survey among parents in the town to discover what they wanted.

Dennis Williams, education assistant director, said at the time: "The survey demonstrated a high level of interest for council-funded nursery classes. These survey results continue to be an important factor in considering the future level and diversity of nursery education in the Wharfe Valley."

The survey revealed that there was nursery provision at independent schools, playgroups and day nurseries, but they all had to be paid for with a maximum Nursery Education Grant of £370 per term.

But there were not enough grants for all three-year-olds in the district and the council followed the policy of concentrating on deprived areas leaving Ilkley without any free places.

Former chairman of the governors at Ashlands and Ilkley Conservative district councillor Anne Hawkesworth said she was delighted with the decision.

But she said that state nursery provision should have been provided in Ilkley much sooner.

"We were always told that it would be too expensive but at the end of the day they are going to be able to build space for a nursery at a cost of only £5,000. That is all it is going to cost and there is a demand for it in the area," said Coun Hawkesworth.

The plan will now go out for consultation with teachers, parents, governors and other schools before it is finally implemented.