PLANS for a new high school to end the Ribble Valley pupil places nightmare have been scrapped in favour of £1.9million of improvements to two existing sites.

A year after county councillors said up to 250 new places could be created by finding a new site and relocating and expanding Bowland High School, currently in Grindleton, new plans are set to be approved which will see it stay on its existing site.

Instead, more than £1.4million is to be spent at Ribblesdale High School, in Queen's Road, Clitheroe, and Bowland High School, building new classrooms which should create an extra 308 spaces for pupils.

The change in policy has come after education bosses realised it would have been difficult to get the extra funding needed to relocate Bowland.

The Ribble Valley has been beset with a lack of school places because of the massive increase in houses built in recent years.

A new block of eight classrooms opened at Bowland in August, which provided an extra 132 spaces for Ribble Valley pupils on top of the existing 273 places. In the past, dozens of pupils had to travel outside the borough because there were not enough spaces for them.

Now another £533,000, made up of cash from two Government grants, is to be spent extending the new block further to provide two new classrooms, a technology classroom and a special needs classroom.

At Ribblesdale High School, some £900,000 was allocated for a block of eight classrooms last year.

Those plans have been redrawn to create another two classrooms, taking the total cost of the project to just over £1million, of which the school is paying £69,000.

A further £502,000 is being made available to pay for 'infrastructure improvements' at the school, which could result in the transfer of Ribblesdale Nursery School to a new site to create more space for the school to expand.

PE facilities will also be improved.

Ribblesdale currently has space for 1,166 pupils.

A report to today's meeting of the education executive committee recommended approving the schemes, saying it would mean every pupil from within the Ribble Valley who wanted a place at either of the schools would get one.

Often, parents were left scrabbling for a place for their child if they failed Royal Clitheroe Grammar School's entrance exam or were turned away from denominational schools such as St Augustine's, Billington or St Wilfrid's, Blackburn.

County Coun Alan Whittaker, cabinet member for education and young people, said: "This has been one of the problems for us in the past because we often have to try to find places for people late on in the school year.

"This new spending represents a significant investment in schools in the Ribble Valley and should hopefully, mean the problems are over.

"A new school would be the ideal solution, perhaps relocating Bowland High School.

"But it is a popular school and it is in a nice location.

Nobody at either school was available to comment.

Stuart Finch, from the Ribble Valley Schools for Ribble Valley Children Campaign said: "The latest information we have had on the numbers of school places available in the Ribble Valley for September 2002 is that there is still likely to be a shortage of around 12 places for local school children.

"The solution from the LEA is for parents in the Mellor and Salesbury areas to put Longridge High School down as their first choice, but this is unlikely to happen, as most parents want their children to go to Ribblesdale High School.

" We don't think these extra places will solve the problem and remain slightly sceptical."