A £5.5million education shake-up in Burnley to create new schools and merge and refurbish others received a mixed reaction from teachers today.

The controversial changes will take education well into the 21st Century and ensure a top class education for local youngsters, according to councillors.

The county's schools and general purposes sub-committee yesterday agreed to:

Amalgamate Burnley Wood and Todmorden Road schools on the Burnley Wood site.

Incorporate Brunshaw Nursery into neighbouring Brunshaw Primary.

Build a new 420-place primary school to replace Rosehill Infant, Rosehill Junior, Healey Wood and Rosehill Nursery schools on the junior site.

Amalgamate Accrington Road and Howard Street nurseries on the Accrington Road site.

Build a 420-place school with a 52 part-time place nursery class on a new site to replace Myrtle Bank Infant, Myrtle Bank Nursery, Hargher Clough and Coal Clough schools.

Keep the infant and junior departments of Barden School separate but reduce annual intake to 60 children.

They decided not to go ahead with the most controversial proposal, the amalgamation of Rosegrove Infant and Lowerhouse Junior schools.

The measures will go to the education committee next Tuesday, jan16, for rubber-stamping.

County Councillor Tony Martin, chairman of the committee which recommended the package said: "This will provide two brand new schools to meet the needs of children for the next 50 to 100 years." A bid will go in for Government funding later this year with changes coming into operation this autumn or autumn 2002. Councillors are confident the Department for Education and Employment will deliver the cash.

The shake-up was sparked by falling number of children in the town. Burnley MP Peter Pike said: "The reality is that the number of vacant places makes some change inevitable.

"As far as I can see the county is trying to give us a package which will use money sensibly and provide an improved package of primary school education."

Adam Sapey, acting head at Burnley Wood, said: "We're happy the amalgamation is happening; we recognised it's necessary. There needs to be a building programme to extend the school. We've suffered from falling rolls because of the degradation of the area."

Burnley Wood's classrooms are just ten years old while Todmorden Road dates back to Victorian times. Christine Lawless, headteacher at Accrington Road nursery and acting headteacher at Howard Street, said: "It's sad that a nursery has to close but it's better to have one strong nursery than two weak ones. I feel it's the way ahead for nursery provision in this area. We've known for some time that something had to be done."

But headteacher of Coal Clough Primary School for the past 25 years, John Barrett, is urging the authority to reconsider.

He said although his school is Victorian, around £750,000 had been spent refurbishing it since the primary and junior schools were amalgamated in 1986.

Mr Barrett said: "One or two of my parent governors have indicated that little ones coming into a school such as this with 200 pupils find it somewhat awesome. For them to go into a school with nearly 500 children has to potential to be daunting."