Seven primary schools across Bradford face closure after projected pupil figures were found to be 'wildly inaccurate'.

The schools have been told there are too many surplus places and they are now too costly to run.

The seven primaries earmarked for closure in July 2004 are: Hoyle Court Primary at Baildon; Woodlands Primary at Oakenshaw; Leytop Primary at Allerton; Parkland at Thorpe Edge; Thorpe Primary at Idle; Cooper Lane Primary at Clayton Heights and Westwood Park Primary.

Parkland and Thorpe are to merge into a new school that will reopen in September 2004. And Cooper Lane and Westwood will merge to form a new school that will re-open on the Westwood site.

The news was broken to heads and governors of the affected schools yesterday. Many were devastated and vowed to fight the plan, which comes while education in the district undergoes a massive shake-up to streamline it from three tiers to two.

Jane Cranmer, a former pupil at Parkland School and now chairman of governors, said: "Why should our children's education be disrupted a second time? We are appalled. The governing body has rejected this proposal as unfair, unjust and indefensible."

She said the Council was wrong to open Thorpe Primary last September just a mile away from her school. Education chiefs should admit their error, close it down and leave Parkland alone, she said.

Martin Tromans, chairman of governors at Woodlands Primary, said: "The governors here will go loopy. One has already said 'over my dead body'. This has come as a bit of a surprise after our recent Ofsted report, which was good. We will fight to keep this school open."

Councillor David Ward, executive member for education, said the previous re-organisation had been based on figures supplied by Bradford Health Authority which plotted demographic trends.

Those figures had now been shown to be way out, he said.

"They have much more sophisticated methods of estimating the places now," he said. "In the past there was double-counting. You are talking about huge differences in some cases," he said.

Officials say there are 850 surplus places just in the current Year 1 population, or 12.7 per cent.

They estimate each surplus place costs the authority £1,300.

And Ofsted guidelines stipulate there should be no more than five per cent surplus places in any area.

Coun Ward acknowledged the closure proposals would be highly controversial. "Either you make these decisions, or you have unviable schools which are a drain," he said. "I am annoyed about the fact that we didn't have accurate information before, but we have just got to put things right."

Gerry Sutcliffe, MP for Bradford South, was angered to learn of the threat to Oakenshaw. "There will be hell on in Oakenshaw about this," he said. "I am opposed to closing it - you need a school in that location."

And Marsha Singh, MP for Bradford West, which covers Allerton, said: "I am very surprised to hear about Leytop and disappointed that I had not been forewarned - I'm sure my constituents in that area will be very disappointed. I'll certainly be taking a careful look at what's being proposed."

Teaching unions have also been briefed on the proposals and promised that there would be no compulsory redundancies.

Teachers would be offered jobs at other Bradford schools on a 'two strikes and you're out' basis: they would not be able to refuse more than two offers.

Ian Murch, of the Bradford branch of the National Union of Teachers, said: "We do not oppose all school closures on principle because schools are not there to provide people with jobs. What we do not like is depriving communities of their schools, in order to make bigger schools."

Schools Section