A set of parents fighting to keep their school open have been granted legal aid to press for a judicial review into the Bradford education shake-up.

If the bid is successful, it might lead to an expensive and prolonged public inquiry into Bradford Council's plan to sweep away an entire tier of the district's education.

The news was revealed at a meeting of the Ravenscliffe and Greengates Residents' Association last night where community leaders pledged they would go as far as fielding their own candidate in a local election on a 'Hands Off Our Schools' ticket.

The association is backing the parents - who have not yet been named - in their fight.

"If the judicial review is granted it will leave the Council in a lot of trouble," the association's chairman, Dominic Sheeran, told the meeting.

"We will have the same standing as the Council. All we have to do is turn up and give evidence, the same as the Council, and we have a very strong case."

The meeting was held at Eccleshill Upper, which has been earmarked for closure under the schools shake-up, along with neighbouring schools Brookfields and Ravenscliffe First.

Residents spoke of their sense of betrayal that three key schools, in an area granted £17.5 million for regeneration under the Newlands scheme, were closing.

"This week we have been approached by someone who wants to stand against the sitting Labour candidates so that they know enough is enough," said Mr Sheeran.

Parents on the two estates were concerned that the much-vaunted new school proposed for Thorn Garth would not guarantee a place for children from Eccleshill.

Mr Sheeran also said he feared grant-maintained Hanson School would try to exclude children from the poorer area.

Parents would then have only one choice - to send their children to Carlton Bolling College.

Shutting all the three schools would essentially be stripping the estates of their best assets leaving them as ghost towns which families would refuse to move into. "They are stripping the resources of Ravenscliffe and Green-gates," said Mr Sheeran.

A Bradford Council spokesman said they had not received any notification about the matter or what a judicial review would be asked to consider. "At this stage we are, therefore, unable to say if it would have any effect on the council's reorganisation process."

l A war of words has erupted after Bradford Council's Education Resources and Buildings Sub-Committee meeting tomorrow was shelved due to lack of business.

Councillor Chris Greaves, the Tory group's sub-committee spokesman, said he cannot believe that there is nothing worth discussing in the light of the biggest shake-up in the city's educational history.

But, sub-committee chairman Coun Jean Ellison said the opposition member had jumped the gun.

"We have not yet had the final word from the Secretary of State on whether we can go ahead and it would be wrong to move without it," she said.

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