A row has broken out after it was revealed that part of a Bradford school has not had hot water for more than a year.

Staff and pupils at Chellow Dene Middle School, Chellow Dene, have to turn the tap on for 20 minutes before any warm water comes out.

Angry Governors have called on the Council to send in the plumbers and have passed a resolution expressing their disgust at the year-long delay.

They claim the problems date from before they moved into the building 18 months ago and it is therefore Bradford City Council's responsibility to fix it.

However, the bone of contention is that the Council say the repair bill should go to the school under the Local Management of Schools scheme which puts the headteacher in charge of his own repair budget.

"I think it's fair to say that we are all fairly disgusted," said Ann Howie, chair of governors at Chellow Dene.

"We just want someone to come out and deal with it.

"If you let the tap run for about 20 minutes then you may get some hot water," said Mrs Howie. "But that is terrible waste of water, which is such a valuable commodity, and it sends out a terrible message to the children."

Science and technology labs, including the domestic science area, are affected by the hot water problems.

"If children have been cooking and need to clean up, then cold water does not really do the job. In fact it could be quite unhygienic."

Chellow Dene was established in September 1997 on the site of Daisy Hill Middle School, which was formerly St Edmund Campion RC Middle.

According to the headteacher David Park, because the problems date from before they moved in, they are not the school's responsibility to put right.

"We have a disagreement in the sense of who takes responsibility," he said.

"It would cost us £300 to get in a water engineer to look at it and obviously we have tight budgets and we can't always afford to do that."

Councillor Jean Ellison, chairman of the resources and buildings sub-committee, said the matter would be discussed by members at their meeting on Wednesday with a view to resolving the issue.

Coun Ellison said the priority was finding out the source of the problems with hot water at the school and how much it would cost to put right before deciding who would foot the bill.

She promised officers would be looking into the matter.

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