BURNLEY'S bid for £150million to build eight new "super schools" in Burnley and South Pendle failed because the boroughs' schools were performing too well.

But education bosses are now confident the town will be able to press ahead with its plans by 2007.

Levels of deprivation and educational standards were the main criteria on which the Department for Education and Skills selected the 10 authorities that would receive a share of the £2.2billion on offer in the first wave of funding under the Building Schools for the Future programme.

Jack Bennett, Lancashire County Council's director for special projects, who was leading the bid, said: "Burnley has pockets of deprivation, but the performance of its schools is quite good.

"Schools in the authorities that made it to the final 10 were doing a lot worse and that is why our bid has gone down."

But Mr Bennett said that being one of two authorities on a reserve list meant Burnley was still in with a chance of getting into the first wave of funding for the financial year 2005/06.

He said: "Over the next few months we will be working with officers from the Department for Education and Skills to develop our bid, and if any of the 10 on the list fail to progress we will be in a good position to move forward with ours."

Mr Bennett added that he was confident that if Burnley did not get the money it needed to transform its schools in 2005/2006, it would be included in the second wave of funding in 2006/2007.

Martin Fisher, North West regional officer for the National Union of Teachers, said that Burnley's failure to be included in the first round of funding meant the annual admissions crisis and the problems of white and Asian pupils failing to mix would continue to plague secondary education in Burnley.

He said: "The underlying pressures prompting the authority to review its provision have not gone away.

"This will also cause continuing uncertainty for teachers, pupils and parents."

But Mr Bennett said the county council, the district council, and the schools would continue to work in partnership to tackle both these issues.

He said: "The key to the vision we are trying to develop for Burnley and Pendle is collaborative working within the education system, and we will continue to work on that.

"We would like to have these new buildings, but the key is everyone working closely together to tackle these issues."

He added that problems of Asian and white pupils failing to mix would be addressed when the borough eventually gets the money.

Mr Bennett believes work has to be done to change misplaced perceptions about the borough's schools.

He said: "The performance of our schools in not a problem, the problem is that the public has a perception of the relative worth of our schools, for example Habergham is perceived as being the best and Barden as under-performing, which is not true.

"All the schools provide good education and we need to make the parents more aware and more confident with the education provided at those schools."

Burnley MP Peter Pike will today question the Government's decision not to include Burnley in the first wave of funding during education questions in the House of Commons.

He said: "I shall be raising this issue and expressing my disappointment most forcefully to ministers.

"I have been trying to tackle this problem of secondary schooling in Burnley for years, both as a council leader and an MP.

"The proposal to rebuild schools would have tackled the problem of under-demand on one side of the town and over-demand at the other side."

Senior county councillors and officers will today attended the launch of the Building Schools for the Future programme.

Key figures behind the Burnley bid are arranging a meeting to discuss the bid's future.