STAFF and parents from special schools which are set to close within two years say teaching expertise will be lost forever.

Blackburn with Darwen Council's education committee last night approved plans to merge Dame Evelyn Fox and Blackamoor Schools in the year 2000 and close the primary department at Crosshill School in 2001.

High schools in the borough will have money spent on them to make them more accessible to children with physical disabilities and two primary schools will get resources to accommodate children with moderate learning difficulties.

Council chiefs say the move is in response to the falling number of pupils attending special schools.

But staff and parents have accused the council of implementing change for the sake of change and attended last night's meeting wearing campaign T-shirts with the slogan "If it isn't broken don't fix it" emblazoned on them - a comment taken from the leader column of this newspaper on Thursday, May 20.

Barbara Gordon, the deputy head governor of Blackamoor School, said: "The council wants to spend all this money on adapting other schools when we have perfectly good schools already in place.

"I have seen children who have struggled in mainstream schools who have then come to Blackamoor and then really progressed.

"That is because of the expertise in these schools, expertise that will be lost forever if these plans go ahead, which it looks like they will." Councillors spent more than an hour debating the changes.

Liberal Democrat Coun David Foster suggested a "resourced" primary school should be set up but Crosshill primary department should continue, with parental choice ultimately deciding which one should survive.

Labour councillors backed the changes, arguing there was no serious alternative in the light of falling school rolls.

Conservatives abstained from the vote which approved the proposals.

Education director Mark Pattison said no redundancies were envisaged but that he could not give any "categoric assurances."

A two month consultation will now take place into the merger of Dame Evelyn Fox and Blackamoor Schools before the final decision is made by Education Secretary David Blunkett.

A similar exercise for Crosshill primary department will take place between August and October.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.