FIRE crews from Fairweather Green came to the aid of as Bradford school yesterday morning, as a pipe fault caused basement flooding.

It was not the ideal start to the school week for Sandy Lane Primary on Cottingley Road in Allerton, with the youngsters having to be sent home as a safety precaution.

Thankfully, the school is back up and running as normal today, with an all hands to pump approach ensuring that the potentially serious issue was resolved quickly.

A spokesperson for Fairweather Green fire station said: "We received a call to a basement flooding at a school.

"It wasn't actually down the rain over the weekend, but a pipe fault instead. The boilers were affected so they had to shut the water and gas off.

"They couldn't have the heating on either so they'd already decided to send the children home by the time we arrived.

"We spent an hour and a half pumping the water out of the basement and a gas engineer was also there to just check things over."

Mr Cooper, headteacher at Sandy Lane Primary School, explained: "Water from the pipe burst into the cellar.

"We had to turn the water off, which meant that the children couldn't use the toilets and we couldn't cook their school dinner, so we had to send them home.

"We had all sorts of people out to ensure the problem was properly fixed. Everything is safe now and we're open as normal this morning."