THE doors may have shut at an Ilkley private school but the legacy of bitterness over the closure of Clevedon House goes on.

In April this year, parents and pupils at the Ben Rhydding school were stunned to learn that the owner, the Licensed Trade Charity, had decided to close it.

Charity bosses said that the continuing financial losses at the school could not be sustained and it would cease to operate in July this year.

Some parents accused the charity of letting pupils and teachers down, a lack of consultation and causing a great deal of worry to families.

Lynn Bye, a parent and former chairman of The Clevedon House School Association said that there were still some parents who did not know if their children had found alternative places or not for the start of the September term.

Some children have found places at Ilkley private schools such as Westville House or Moorfield and others, including Mrs Bye's children, had found places at Bronte House in Rawdon. But there were others who were not so lucky.

Mrs Bye said: "We know quite a lot of people who are appealing for places in local state schools over the last month or so, but they won't find out until the middle of summer."

And she again accused the charity of a lack of concern and of being petty about school trophies the children had won.

She said: "They wrote to the parents who have received awards and prizes and asked for their cups back. It is an absolute disgrace - what do they want to do with them?"

A spokesman for the charity said that trophies, which were awarded to children for 12 months only, belonged to the school and the charity. She said that if parents wanted they could write to the charity asking to keep the trophy their child had won for 12 months before giving it back.

She said the trophies would then be used at two other schools the charity owned in the south of England.

Although the 70-pupil preparatory school closed on July 8, the nursery with 80 children aged from three months to four years, will not shut its doors until July 29.

The spokesman defended the charity's position: "We gave the parents and teachers a term of notice which is what we were legally obliged to do.

"The school was running at 50 per cent of its capacity and the situation was not going to improve. The charity was left with no alternative.

"A meeting was offered but only two parents responded. Both have been seen and as far as we are concerned we have been as open as possible with the parents. They were trying to see if they could take on the school themselves and we gave them all the information they required. We have tried to be as open as we can with them."

But Mrs Bye disagreed strongly. She said: "They have been utterly disgraceful the way they treated the parents and showed a lack of concern and acknowledgement that we might be upset about it. Some parents are still arguing that they don't have to pay the full fees.

"A lot of children are quite upset about the whole thing. The licensed trade charity have failed to recognise that the decision to close the school could have had an impact on anybody there.

"Staff have been wonderful - they must have been devastated. People have written to the Charities Commission to complain and I would urge other parents to write to the Charities Commission.

"I just feel the people who made the decision have not made the decision in the interest of the children at the school or in the interests of the charity either.

"They just came and said we are shutting down the school. They have not acknowledged the difficulties we have been having - it is appalling."