"THE fight is not yet over" was the message to supporters of Barnoldswick's Rainhall Road Primary School this week.

A public meeting was held at the school on Monday after Lancashire County Council's education committee voted last week to close the school.

Despite losing this first battle in their campaign to save the school, Coun David Whipp urged supporters to fight on.

Chairman of governors Margaret Bell urged people to write to the Local Education Authority stating their objections to the closure proposal.

The decision of the education committee will now go to a full meeting of the county council on October 12 where campaigners will try to overturn it.

Mrs Bell explained that a notice advertising the proposal to close the school would be made public today (Friday) and there would then be three months in which people could appeal against the move.

The independent Schools Organisation Committee will discuss any objections and make the final decision on the school's future.

Mrs Bell said: "We're hoping to get on board as many members of the public as we can to write and make comments. After that if the decision goes against us the earliest the school can close is July next year."

County education officers originally sited falling pupil numbers as the reason for the possible closure, claiming the children could be accommodated at other schools in the area within a two-mile radius, including Earby, Kelbrook and Salterforth.

But Mrs Bell said: "Earby, Kelbrook and Salterforth should be taken out of the equation. They are not part of this community and when they are taken out it leaves six surplus places for the whole of Barnoldswick.

"This will affect the rest of the schools in Barnoldswick which will have to take children from Rainhall Road and have no spare places, so the classrooms will become squashed and the children will not get the same kind of education."

Coun Whipp told the 30 members of the public present: "The county council should be spending more money on nursery classes. If Rainhall Road is not full to capacity why doesn't the county council invest in nursery places here?"

He added that this would help with the crippling shortage of nursery places in the area and also feed more pupils into the school in the older age groups.

People at the meeting agreed, one person commenting: "We've been fighting for more nursery places since the 1970s."

Mrs Bell said officers had moved the goalposts at last week's meeting and sited poor standards and test results as the justification for closing the school.

But Rainhall Road headteacher Shirley McCormack said the school had to meet targets set out for its pupils and had met these targets as set by county council advisors.

Asked if there had been any reaction from other local schools who would be affected by the proposal, Coun Whipp said many of the governors disagreed with the proposal, whilst some governing bodies had discussed the issue and come out against it.

Another member of the public asked what would happen to the school building if it closed down.

"Will it become a supermarket or will it fall into disrepair and become a doss house for drunks and drug addicts?" he asked.

But Coun Whipp replied: "We should not be looking at that, we should be thinking that it has a future as a school. We must fight this."

A letter was read out by Mrs McCormack from Richard Glover, the county council's elected parent governor representative, who is independent from any political party. He expressed his opposition to the decision made by the committee: "I believe this was a decision made prior to the meeting and that no matter what arguments or points were raised in the 'debate' this was to be the inevitable outcome," he wrote.

"All that I can say is I tried my best and that my arguments were based on what I saw as being in the best interests of the children in Rainhall Road Community Primary School. It is a pity that other members either did not believe this to be so, were completely unaware of the needs of the children for support and stability or they had different agendas, which of these.... I couldn't possibly comment.

Anyone wanting advice about writing a letter of objection to the county council can contact Margaret Bell, David Whipp or Mrs McCormack at the school