Residents fear that giving the green light to 400 new homes near Gilstead will result in their village school being unable to cope with the demand for places.

And they are calling on Bradford Council to act now to make sure education provision in the area is sufficient to meet future needs.

Last month a Government inspector gave permission for 400 homes to be built on fields between Gilstead and Eldwick.

The plans were bitterly opposed by local residents and had initially been rejected by the Council. But the inspector allowed outline permission for the homes at Warren Lane on appeal with a phased start of 150 properties until the completion of the Bingley Relief Road.

Barry Foster, secretary of Gilstead Village Society, said he feared the development would put an unbearable strain on the 420-pupil Eldwick Primary School - due to open on the site of the present Gilstead Middle School in September 2000 following Bradford's education shake up.

Mr Foster said: "All these new developments have lots of children and I can't see Warren Lane being any different. That will obviously put a lot of pressure on the school but nobody's talking about making it any bigger.

"As it stands, the school isn't going to be big enough and I think the Council should be doing something now to plan for these extra children and take them into account.

"Effectively we'll be turned from a village into a town - there could be up to 400 new homes there in the long run and it doesn't take much working out to say that will bring in a lot more children. That will put a big strain on local facilities including school provision.''

Sue Greenwood, head teacher at Eldwick First School, which will become Eldwick Primary, said she did not anticipate there being much spare capacity at the new school, adding: "This is something we're going to have to discuss with the LEA. But we're in the middle of reorganisation and have a lot of things to discuss and at the moment this isn't one of our main worries.''

Bradford's education chairman Councillor Jim Flood (Lab, Bingley) said: "We can't plan new education provision until there are 'curtains in the windows' because the development might not happen and you'd be left with empty classrooms. We can't plan on the basis of speculation."

Shipley MP Chris Leslie, who led the fight against the proposed development, said: "We need to make sure the primary school has enough capacity to cope with future needs."

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