CAMPAIGNERS hoping to save a sports centre from demolition as part of a school rebuild plan have accused Kirklees Council of treating them unfairly.

It emerged last week that plans had been redrawn for Oakbank School in Keighley, which is part of the same wider £150 million programme to rebuild seven schools in Yorkshire under the Government's priority school rebuilding programme.

The original plans had included the demolition of Victorian stone-built Haggas House, which is the oldest part of the school and is now used as its office. But an application to have Haggas House listed looks set to be successful so Laing O'Rourke, the construction firm behind the whole project, has draw up alternative plans which would retain Haggas House, and these are due to go before planners at a meeting today.

The latest twist has prompted criticism from campaigners hoping to save Whitcliffe Mount sports centre in Cleckheaton from demolition, who have questioned why there was no 'plan B' when it came to rebuilding the neighbouring Whitcliffe Mount school.

A spokesman for the campaigners, who successfully took their complaints about a lack of consultation over the decision to close the sport centre to the Local Government Ombudsman, said: "We have received news that one of the other schools within the Yorkshire programme which is having issues, namely Oakbank School, Keighley, which faced delay because of a Historic England decision, is to have its new build plans reconfigured.

"No mention of any threats to withdraw funds and no mention of difficulties in redrawing the plans.

"The situation of both schools is not that dissimilar, so it begs the question - why is the Education Funding Agency making such threats to one school and seemingly making every effort to accommodate the other. At what point will the EFA accept that Kirklees Council has behaved badly in this matter and has made a decision to close the sports centre without any legal justification.

"Will it take a judicial inquiry for common sense and fairness to prevail? As shown by the latest development, it is not too late to change plans.”

A report to today's meeting of Bradford Council's regulatory and appeals committee shows that while the decision on whether to list Haggas House by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has not yet been made, Historic England has recommended that the building should be listed.

The £150m programme to rebuild seven schools in Yorkshire includes Beckfoot Upper Heaton school in Heaton, Samuel Lister Academy in Cottingley - where work has already started. In addition construction is expected to begin shortly at Carlton Bolling College in Undercliffe.

A spokesman for Kirklees Council said that officers had checked these matters with the EFA. He added: “The response was that the building under consideration for listing at Oakbank is located on the proposed site of the all weather pitch, the main school building is unaffected. In the event that the building is listed only the external works would need to be reconfigured.

"In the case of Whitcliffe Mount, if the existing sports centre was to remain the school location would need to be changed because of the close proximity to the footprint of the sports centre.

"This affects the whole layout of the building which has taken many months to complete, with additional ground investigation surveys, contamination risk and many other site specific risks being reintroduced in to the project, along with the additional associated costs.”