Plans for any new primary schools would not be welcome in an inner-city area of Bradford, according to the Council’s education chief.

Despite the district’s growing young population and a move to add almost 700 extra primary school places to cope with soaring numbers by September, no more places are needed in and around Lidget Green.

Primary school head teachers in the area had said they were concerned a three-form entry primary school was being proposed by 2016 as part of the bid to open King’s Science Academy in Northside Road.

The free school intends to open in converted office and warehouse space in Sept-ember and is initially for up to 600 pupils aged 11 to 16.

But seven primary school head teachers met Kath Tunstall, Bradford Council’s strategic director for children and young people, to discuss their reservations about any future primary element at the new school.

Mrs Tunstall said: “We have to assess the impact of any free school application in relation to school places.

“There is sufficient primary capacity in that particular part of the district and so a three-form entry primary would not be needed. This has been conveyed to the Department of Education and I believe that that element of the application has now been withdrawn.”

Sajid Hussain, a teacher at Dixons Allerton Academy, who is leading the bid, denied provision for primary pupils was part of the application to the Department for Education. He said: “We never had a three-form entry primary application in the business case. In fact, we have not made any application for a primary. Our business case was solely for an 11 to 16 provision.”

The Telegraph & Argus reported last September that Manchester-born philanthropist Alan Lewis, chairman of the Hartley Investment Trust & Group, was backing the King’s Science bid, as well as microprocessor intellectual property firm ARM and tax services company Price-waterhouseCoopers.

It was one of the first 16 free schools in the country to be supported by the Department for Education.