Education Minister David Blunkett is to be urged to support a call for a doomed Oakworth school campus to be retained as a green lung in the community.

Keighley MP Ann Cryer told campaigners battling to stop the Bronte Middle School site being swallowed up by housing that she would send Mr Blunkett a summary of last night's public meeting called by Keighley Education Action Group.

"I am in support of keeping this area as a green lung in the community,'' she told about 100 people in the school hall.

Matthew Berghardt, operations manager for Bradford Council's education authority, said he would be meeting education chief Diana Cavanagh today to spell out details of the meeting.

People were invited to join a working party to produce recommendations for the future use of the school, possibly as a sports academy or a further education unit.

Keighley Labour Councillor Mike Young (Worth Valley) called for the site to be used as a sports academy.

"Bronte has great grounds and is a wonderful site that could be developed for sports. A lot of sports organisations and hundreds of children use this site and that is something we must work on," he said.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.