PLANS for a Burnley super school have gone back to the drawing board after the discovery of a land ownership blunder.

Officials behind the Building Schools for the Future programme admit that they have had to redraft proposals for the new Sir John Thursby School, on Eastern Avenue, Burnley, because of a miscalculation on the footprint of the education establishment.

Planning chiefs have admitted that a strip of land, which would have housed a number of sports pitches to the eastern end of the school site, does not belong to education authorities.

A Lancashire County Council planning department spokesman said: "It has now emerged that there has been some confusion between the county council and the adjoining landowner, regarding the boundary of land ownership along the northeastern boundary of the site.

"It appears that the county council does not currently control all of the land for which planning permission has been granted."

Talks are still ongoing with the neighbouring landowner, in an effort to resolve the boundary dispute, but BSF leaders have had to make contigency plans.

The school project can still go ahead, subject to a revised planning permission being given by Lancashire County Council's development control committee tomorrow.

Another layout for the school has been suggested, which would see the lost playing fields moved to the south-east corner of the site.

But the cock-up is just the latest problem, in recent weeks, to befall the £250million initiative's bid to regenerate Burnley and Pendle's school buildings stock for the 21st century.

Last week it was reported how the county council's stake in the scheme was being supported by an extra £2.85million in borrowing, following alterations to Burnley's Unity College and Marsden Heights Community College in Pendle.

The final go-ahead has only just been given to the Marsden Heights project after months of wrangling with local residents, who made bids to establish a town green on Benthead playing fields, then claimed a public right of way ran across the site.

The outcome of a bitterly-contested public inquiry into another BSF project, for the new Towneley High School in Burnley, is also expected shortly.

And in November it emerged that building work at Pendle Vale Community College was also behind schedule - although developers insisted the school would still open by September 2008, as planned.