THE new Hameldon Community College is set to be built at the former St Hilda's School in Burnley, and will cater for 300 students less than originally planned.

Education authority Lancashire County Council announced its "fresh vision" for the school yesterday.

The revised plan would see a 750-place college for 11 to 16-year-olds built on the Coal Clough Lane site, rather than a 1,050 pupil school as previously planned.

Education bosses said the change was due to falling pupil numbers across Lancashire, and not because parents were shunning Hameldon after a troubled first year.

Under the county council's £250 million Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, all of Burnley's secondary schools closed and five new schools were created in September 2006.

Hameldon, which merged Ivy Bank and Habergham High Schools, is in the third phase and scheduled to have a new purpose-built school by September 2010.

Burnley Council objected to the initial suggested site off Rossendale Road, after which the main site to be considered was in Melrose Avenue, on land owned by Burnley Council and Calico Housing Association.

Use of this site would have meant demolishing 64 houses at an estimated cost of £11million, and Hameldon governors objected to the plans on grounds of unsuitability.

County council officers are now recommending that a smaller build in Coal Clough Lane, currently being used by Blessed Trinity RC High School, which merged St Hilda's and St Theodore's under BSF.

The new building would be just over two miles from the current Hameldon site in Byron Street, and the council said it would be well positioned to create links with the nearby Cherry Fold Community Primary School, and the wider community.

The news has been welcomed by school governors.

Chairman David Pickles said: "Our wish was that the new school was built on our current site, but this is a very happy medium, as it will allow Hameldon to become a real community school, which is what we wanted."

The Hameldon building work would take place on the current playing field next to the Blessed Trinity buildings, which would eventually be demolished and converted into playing fields for the new Hameldon.

Blessed Trinity is moving to new college buildings on the existing St Theodore's Site in 2010.