A decision hailed as a major boost to Ilkley just a few weeks ago has been condemned as an environmental disaster by green campaigners.

Under the Bradford schools review, All Saints Church of England School, in Leeds Road, will move lock stock and barrel to become All Saints Primary School on a site previously earmarked in Skipton Road.

Headteacher Peter Marsh has said he is delighted with the move to the new site.

But members of Ilkley's environmental campaigning group, the Wharfedale Environmental Trust (Wet), say it will mean the loss of one of the few remaining "green lungs" in the town.

According to Wet, a new school built on the former railway site in Skipton Road will have many detrimental effects on the town. The group says it will:

l Lead to a massive increase in car use, as parents will be obliged to take their children to school.

l See existing traditional buildings replaced by cheap and ugly modern buildings.

l Set a dangerous precedent for bulldozing other school land in the area.

And, say Wet members, the site is the habitat of the rare wood spurge - the only hairy spurge native to Britain.

The trust says it is not unsympathetic to the concerns of parents at the recent rationalisation of Ilkley schools but considers that the changes are being driven with the interests of developers uppermost.

Treasurer John Robinson said: "The development could mean that the panorama of yellow vetch, purple willowherb and bee orchids would be lost forever - not to mention the excellent blackberry picking."

Trust members want to see the greater part of the site preserved for future generations of Ilkley people as a wildlife heaven.

Mr Robinson said: "Ilkley has precious few green spaces left, and now they want to take this one away from us too.

"I wonder if Bradford education bosses would send their children to the school, if they knew that the children's playground had had to be built by destroying the habitat of so many species."

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