PARENTS in Ribble Valley villages are threatening to boycott their children's education in a row over school places. They want their youngsters to attend Clitheroe secondary schools, which are bursting at the seams, but have instead been offered places in Hyndburn and Blackburn. The annual scramble for first-choice high school places in Burnley and Pendle is also reaching its crescendo. Excessive house-building, lack of foresight, peaks and troughs in the birth rate and zealous parental choice are being blamed for putting education provision in East Lancashire at the bottom of the class. THERESA ROBSON reports.

WHEN Ribble Valley Council leader Howel Jones was head teacher at Brookside Primary School, Clitheroe, the 300-odd homes of nearby Highmoor Park did not exist.

The sound of pupils at work and play would waft over the green fields surrounding the schoolhouse, tucked away at the top of Bright Street and overlooked by Pendle Hill.

When Brookside opened in 1974, Coun Jones struggled to fill classes but 25 years and 2,400 new homes later, things aren't quite adding up.

The Ribble Valley's affluent, middle-class image is a magnet to house-builders cashing in on the exodus of young, upwardly-mobile families from urban areas to the countryside.

And its table-topping schools, spearheaded by Clitheroe Royal Grammar School, are seen as a must for parents keen to get the best education for their children.

But they are up in arms after being told their youngsters must attend secondary schools in Hyndburn and Rishton.

Some of the children face the prospect of long walks down country lanes and multiple bus journeys to get them to schools outside he borough on time.

The area's leafy villages have become hotbeds of militancy, as their parents threaten to keep them off school come September. They are not alone.

Parents in Trawden and Laneshawbridge mounted a similar battle for places for their children at Park High School, Colne. They kicked up a fuss when their children were being bussed past Park High to schools several miles away.

Burnley MP Peter Pike also had to intervene when demand for Ivy Bank and Habergham High Schools shot through the roof, leaving many local children high and dry.

But he stressed that parents had "preferences," not "choices," and said education bosses "could not work miracles."

He added: "I hope that where three reasonable preferences have been given children will be able to get an allocation of one of them.

"And parents do have a right to appeal."

Parents living in Lammack, Blackburn, have written to local MP and Home Secretary Jack Straw after their children failed to win a place at popular Pleckgate High.

Now the escalating Ribble Valley row has been raised in Parliament by the area's Tory MP Nigel Evans, who has pledged to take the matter to Education Secretary David Blunkett.

But Coun Jones claims the former Conservative Government's policy of forcing four million new homes on the countryside, 2,400 of them in the Ribble Valley, is a main cause of the problem.

And County Coun Chris Holtom, who represents the majority of the 50 or so families at the centre of the row, has called for a new secondary school to be built in Whalley. Coun Jones, who is to raise the matter as an emergency debate in the council chamber tonight, said borough planners were given no choice but to comply with Government house-building targets.

"The Conservative Government set a national target of over four million new homes and the Ribble Valley's allocation was 2,400.

"We had no option but to comply but we tried to keep numbers to a minimum.

"In the past, the council has put forward the lack of school places as a reason for refusing housing developments but has been overturned by Government inspectors," he said.

"Brookside Primary School was built in 1974 and I was its first head teacher.

"In those days, we struggled to get pupils but it's a different story now.

"Schools across the valley are bursting at the seams, yet houses are springing up everywhere.

"It can't carry on."

Coun Holtom said his patch now included massive new developments at Brockhall, Langho and Barrow, the latter of which nearly doubled the size of the village.

In addition, hundreds of houses are planned for the former Calderstones Hospital site in Whalley.

He has criticised education chiefs for not predicting the problem and is calling for a new secondary school to be built in Whalley.

"I agree with the parents that secondary education in Ribble Valley is inadequate.

"The gross insufficiency in school places was not flagged up in advance and, even if all the families win their appeals, it will leave education officers with a nightmare.

"This situation is going to crop up again and again and a new secondary school in Whalley would be an ideal solution," he said. Education bosses are dismissing claims that they have failed to keep abreast of rising population in Ribble Valley and say a new school for the area is out of the question.

They say over the past six years nearly 500 extra places have been created at Ribble Valley secondary schools.

A spokeswoman said: "We have been monitoring and planning for the need for additional secondary school places in Ribble Valley for several years and this process will continue for as long as is necessary.

"We provided 37 extra places at Bowland in 1995 and 41 are planned for next year.

"We will also provide 45 extra places at Ribblesdale, on top of the 78 in 1996.

"Proponents of a new secondary school for the Ribble Valley need to understand that the capital funding regime means a new school would have to be justified in several bids to the Department for Education.

"A new school would cost about £5 million and, as a levelling-out of pupil numbers is predicted from 2004/5 onwards, it is unlikely that it would be thought viable."

As politicians wrangle over the causes and solutions of the problem, East Lancashire parents continue to pore over Ofsted reports and are adamant that only their chosen school will do.

"You only have to look at the reports to see why some schools are half empty and others are bursting at the seams, " said Mellor parent Julie Cafferty.

"Parents want the best for their children and have a right to choose the school they want."

Sawley mum Carol Osborn said she moved to the Ribble Valley because of the quality of the schools and was horrified to discover her daughter could not go to Ribblesdale High.

"They have offered us Accrington Moorhead, but that is 11 miles away and there is no bus.

"Hell will freeze over before she goes there," she said.

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