Farmer Brian Lazenby fears a new £9 million secondary school planned for Bradford could force him off the land his family has worked for more than 40 years.

The 59-year-old says he and his wife Pauline have been kept in the dark about proposals for the new Church of England school - called Immanuel Community College - on the site of the now-demolished Thorn Garth Special School in Thackley.

Park Hill Farm, which his father first rented from Bradford Council in 1954, is on the other side of Ellar Carr Road - a single-track lane running the length of the school site.

But he says no-one - apart from Lib Dem ward Councillor David Ward - has talked to him about the possibility he might lose some of his 32 acres to the school, which will take 1,400 pupils and will include two sports halls, a car park, a large assembly hall and a chapel.

"I have three fields that border Ellar Carr Road and they are the best land I have," he said. "They are worth more than the rest put together.

"If they take them they will reduce my land by half and my income by about two-thirds - and I don't see how I will be able to carry on.

"The first I knew about it was when David Ward told me they might want the fields. We don't know anything and when I tried to find out at the council, the people I talked to didn't know anything about it."

Mark Pettit, of Bradford architects Halliday Clarke - who are drawing up the plans for the site - said: "There won't be any building on it but there is a possibility that part of the land will be used for the school. We don't know how much - it's under negotiation with the council at the moment."

Malcolm Halliday , director of education for Bradford Diocese, said: "My belief is there will be a need for additional land owned by the local authority to be made available by the council in addition to the school site itself in order that recreational facilities can be provided.

"I am surprised discussions have not already started between the local authority and the tenant."

Coun Ward, who is a governor of the new school, said: "I went to see Mr Lazenby and asked him what he thought about the council using his land and he didn't know anything about it."

A council spokesman said: "We have not yet contacted Mr Lazenby because we are still waiting to receive definite plans from the diocesan architects about additional land requirements.

"We appreciate his obvious concerns but it would not have been appropriate to raise this matter with him before the schools' reorganisation was confirmed by the Government and a planning application has been submitted.

"As soon as we know the full extent of the application and the land affected, we will contact him and enter into full discussions regarding the proposed playing fields which the council is responsible for providing."

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