EDUCATION chiefs at Blackburn with Darwen Council were today accused of killing community feeling within a popular secondary school by allocating places to pupils who live miles away.

Secretary of the parent teacher association at Blackburn's Pleckgate High School Ruth Pimley spoke out as dozens of angry parents anxiously waited the outcome of appeals heard this week.

They are hoping the council's decision to allocate their children places at schools in other parts of the borough will be overturned tomorrow but they have already pledged to take their fight to the local government ombudsman if that decision is upheld. Mrs Pimley, who has a 14-year-old son at Pleckgate, said: "I find the situation absolutely appalling. We are trying to build a community feeling and a community school here but how can we do that if pupils and their families do not live around here?

"The Pleckgate School Association is in crisis because we do not have enough parents to attend meetings and one of the main reasons is that they live well out of the district and it is too far for them to come.

"There are more than enough local children to fill Pleckgate and they should be given priority. These other children would have to travel to school wherever they went and for me they might as well go two miles on the bus than one.

"Instead we are going to have local children also getting the bus to school when they could walk to Pleckgate." The row over the allocation of places at Pleckgate first erupted when pupils currently at nearby St James CE and Lammack primary schools were allocated secondary schools as far away as Darwen.

Dozens of angry parents wrote to the council to appeal and the decisions of an independent panel are expected tomorrow.

Andrew Cairns, of the Lammack and St James Action Group, said: "In the event of any appeals not being successful we are preparing cases to submit to the local government ombudsman, but we will do this as a collective, not individuals."

The ombudsman exists to deal with complaints from people about their council. Blackburn with Darwen's policy over school places gives first priority to children with siblings at the school, then those with special needs and then only does the primary school a child attended, and its proximity to a secondary school, come into play.

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