PARENTS are being urged to have their say on ambitious plans to transform secondary education in Burnley.

Pupils will tomorrow take home a consultation brochure detailing Lancashire County Council's proposals to demolish the borough's eight high schools and replace them with five state-of-the-art buildings.

The booklet contains a questionnaire to gauge people's views on each element of the council's vision, which includes proposals on how to tackle the admissions crisis that has plagued Burnley schools for years.

A series of open evenings are also being held at all eight high schools throughout May to give parents and interested parties the opportunity to talk to council officers about the plans.

County Coun Alan Whittaker said: "This is the beginning of the consultation on the proposals.

"We have the opportunity to improve secondary school arrangements and put Burnley at the forefront of educational developments.

"We now want to ask the wider community for their view on the detail of the proposals.

"We want to emphasise that no decisions have been taken - nothing is set in stone."

The proposals also include a new sixth form centre, which will house both a Roman Catholic and a non-denominational school and plans to create new geographic priority areas to tackle the admissions issue.

There are also plans to build a new primary school, nursery school, creche and special school alongside a new high school on the Barden High School site.

The county council was told earlier this year that its bid for Burnley was one of two reserve schemes in with a chance of receiving funding in the first wave of the Government's Building Schools for the Future programme.

By August, the authority should know whether or not it will get the £170million it has asked for in 2005/06. But Jack Bennett, the council officer leading the project, is hopeful that if they stick to the department's timetable for developing the bid, they have a strong chance of getting the funding.

He said: "We are anxious to get this investment into Burnley. We are included in the first wave but there are no guarantees.

"There are 12 authorities looking to make progress and the ones furthest forward will be most likely to succeed."