A Skipton councillor has criticised North Yorkshire County Council for its failure to supervise building work at the town's Aireville School.

Mike Doyle, who is a county councillor and a governor at the school, says the council neglected Aireville when it encountered problems with its new teaching block. He added that at one point one of the new classrooms was put out of operation by floodwater.

The school has since received an official apology from the council.

The Derwent block was opened in 2002 and holds nine classrooms and an IT room. During building work, water leaked through the roof.

However, upon completion a second building project, comprising two new labs, two workshops, two classrooms and a small teaching area, was announced.

Coun Doyle told the Herald he would have expected the county council, which supervised the building, to have noticed the original leak before it led to the flooding of the brand new classrooms.

He added: "Come phase two the school was persuaded to use North Yorkshire County Council services to supervise the building work once again.

"At the beginning of this term one new classroom was still out of commission because once again when it rained the roof and windows leaked."

Coun Doyle said he believed the problems faced at Aireville were not unique to the Skipton school.

"Supervision of the work has been appalling. On any building project you have a clerk of works to make sure the service was provided by the council," he said. "We had a site meeting and the carpet was soggy, the walls were soggy and the ceiling was wet and it was a brand new building."

He said that there had been many exchanges of correspondence between the council and the school, but it had been left to the staff to sort out the problems.

Coun Doyle put his concerns before a full county council meeting in Northallerton on Wednesday.

Coun Chris Metcalfe, the executive member for education, said he knew that there had been problems with two building constructions.

He explained that phase one of the scheme was let out to a Harrogate firm which went into liquidation before the scheme was finished and the faults rectified.

Coun Metcalfe said the problem of flooding was caused by a blocked drainpipe and corrected by a redesign and additional downpipes.

He added that the Leeds firm contracted to take on the second part of the work was advised on the problems during the first stage of construction.

However a similar problem occurred after torrential rain.

"I understand why the school feel let down and I know that an apology has been made for that," he said. "Fortunately this is an unusual occurrence."