With the consultation into the proposed expansion of Blackgates Primary School underway, ward councillors have expressed their 'complete frustration' at the plans and are demanding to know why a significant increase in admissions from next year has only just been identified.

Backed by residents, councillors led a sustained, but ultimately unsuccessful, campaign to retain the Victorian buildings at Blackgates Infants' School after it merged with Blackgates Junior School in 2005.

Demolition went ahead in 2008 after community-based plans for the buildings were turned down by Leeds City Council.


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Now, with capacity set to increase at Blackgates Primary School, the councillors have branded the 2008 demolition of the infant school building as 'extremely short-sighted.'

Coun Lisa Mulherin said: "It is utterly frustrating that after losing the fight to retain Tingley's Victorian infant school, we are now facing a similar frustration where pupil numbers are set to increase at Blackgates Primary School from September 2011.

"In less than two years the council has razed purpose-built facilities to the ground, then announced that, in all likelihood, the local school will have to increase its capacity.

"I simply cannot understand why the anticipated increase in pupil admissions wasn't identified sooner."

Blackgates is one of 11 schools expected to be expanded in September next year and is one of seven which will need extra buildings and classrooms to accommodate the extra pupils.

Education Leeds said it planned to expand the school to meet increased demand for reception class places arising from an increased birth-rate and movement into Leeds from other areas. This meant pupil numbers at the school would increase from 315 to 420.

For the extra room that is needed, modern, high-quality modular accommodation will be provided, which will have all the facilities children need.

They are also built off-site, which means they will be quickly and easily placed on school grounds.

Coun Karen Renshaw said: "I am horrified that children are going to be taught in portable classrooms when the former infants school would have been much more suitable.

"If they had listened in 2008 that building would still be available."

A spokeswoman for Education Leeds said: "We need to expand primary schools across the city because all the information we have tells us that there will continue to be a rapid rise in the number of children wanting a place in our reception classes over the next few years.

"This is a very different situation to the one we faced in the early part of the decade, when we had to reduce the number of surplus places in the school system.

"We had to do this because schools are funded on the number of children they have on roll, so empty places meant financial pressures for schools which threatened their ability to offer a full curriculum to children.

"The process established a network of sustainable local schools, which we are now looking to expand to give every child in the city a place in a local school.

"The buildings we stopped using as a result of the primary review were not high quality, modular learning spaces. The modular accommodation which will provide the additional space is purpose-built, high quality space which has all the facilities children need and is built to last for decades."