The organisation planning to replace a Bradford school with a new city academy is being urged to meet teachers and councillors to make its plans clear.

Rhodesway School in Allerton is to make way for a new school with £2 million sponsorship from the newly-formed British Edu Trust Foundation.

But Bradford councillors and teaching unions have hit out at "secrecy" over the plan.

The Government ann-ounced that the sponsors plan a non-faith-based city academy by September 2007 to replace Rhodesway which has been in special measures since December 2002.

Neither Bradford Council nor Rhodesway School knew the announcement was about to be made. And there is uncertainty over the identity and plans of the British Edu Trust Foundation.

It is chaired by independent peer Lord Amarali Bhatia and backed by "like-minded" business individuals, says the Department for Education and Skills.

Bradford Council's executive member for education, Councillor Dale Smith, is demanding to know who else in involved in the project.

He said: "It is highly unsatisfactory that discussions are at this stage when, as far as we were concerned, they were at a much earlier stage.

"I am still anxious to know more about the sponsor. The implication is there is mixed sponsorship but I have only heard that through the press and I would like it confirmed."

Phil Green, Bradford Council's Director of Education, said: "The DfES press release about its plans for this came out of the blue.

"We had never heard of the British Edu Trust Foundation until we read the press release. A pre-feasibility visit has been arranged for Rhodesway next week and in our experience this precedes any ministerial approval."

City academies are new schools which are taken out of local education authority control and given freedom to develop their own ethos, curriculum and admissions policy. Dixon's City Academy in West Bowling was Bradford's first last September when it switched from City Technology College status.

And Bradford Cathedral Community College, in East Bowling, is to be replaced by Bradford Academy, sponsored by social action charity TocH, in September 2007.

Teaching unions in Bradford have voiced concern about the Rhodesway plan. Ian Murch, Bradford branch secretary of the NUT, said: "The question you have to ask is why these people should be better at running a school in a town that they would never have been to if they hadn't decided to do this. If this is such good news for Bradford why are they being so secretive about it?"

Lord Bhatia is understood to be interested in opening 20 city academies.

Stuart Herdson, senior-vice president and Bradford branch secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: "What makes this foundation better than educationalists to set up and run possibly 20 schools in England and certainly one in Bradford?"

Mr Herdson fears the impact a city academy would have on other schools if given the freedom to select the strongest pupils from across Bradford.

Councillor David Ward (Lib Dem, Idle and Thackley), former portfolio holder for education, said the Government was treating Bradford Council as "irrelevant."

Bradford Council's Young People and Education Improvement Committee, which scrutinises education, is holding a hearing into city academies on Friday which will feature leading speakers from teaching unions.