Campaigners are calling for a school which is facing the axe under Bradford Council's education shake-up to become a heritage centre.

Haworth Combined Residents' Action Group - which is fighting to set up a parish council centred on the town - want the one-hundred-year-old Haworth First School to be recognised as a listed building.

And they have written to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport seeking information about how to get the building protected so it can continue to serve the community and possibly be the base for the new council.

They fear the school in Butt Lane could be demolished and turned into a housing site or new shopping centre. They want it to become a focus for the area's literary and industrial heritage, serving as a link between the award winning Keighley and Worth Valley Railway and the famous High Street and Bronte Parsonage Museum.

HCRAG's David McKay, said he also sees it being used by the new council and a meeting place for other groups.

He said: "Haworth is a village with an international reputation which should be protected and conserved. The village is the jewel in Bradford's tourism crown and City Hall needs to re-focus on what Haworth is and means locally and internationally. We should preserve its historical and heritage links."

He said the school would make an ideal centre for promoting the area and is well situated between the private steam railway and the Main Street. It could be a showplace for the railway, the famous Bronte Parsonage museum and help promote other tourist attractions, he said.

He said it would be a disaster if the school site was taken over for housing or another shopping complex on the lines of the £3 million development which has been granted permission by Bradford planners in Rawden Road.

Worth Valley Councillor John Cope said he had no objection to the school being considered as a heritage centre.

"But I want to see a strategy for the whole of the Haworth area taking into account the views of residents, traders, the Bronte Society, Keighley and Worth Valley Railway and tourist chiefs," he added. HCRAG is spearheading a campaign to win Government approval to set up a parish council based on Haworth, Cross Roads and Stanbury.

Ballot papers have been sent out and are due to be returned by Wednesday January 6 and the result announced on January 12.

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