A CLASSROOM built with more than £68,000 of taxpayers' money, and used for only three years, looks set to be demolished.

The classroom at the former Bamber Bridge Methodist School, Wesley Street, has stood idle since 2002 when the school merged with St Saviour's, in Church Road.

Now bosses at the new Cuerden Church School, currently based at the St Saviour's former site, want to build a new state-of-the-art school on the Wesley Street site, which would mean knocking down the classroom.

The move has been slammed by South Ribble councillor, Tom Sharratt, who blames the Government for squandering public money.

The classroom was built in 1998 with a grant from the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) at a time when the Government was trying to reduce class sizes for five to seven years olds at Key Stage 1.

Councillor Sharratt said: "This is money down the drain that came from the pockets of taxpayers and must not in my view be squandered."

He said the replacement of a decrepit building that was more than 100 years old, like Bamber Bridge Methodist School, made sense, but a short-term measure, like spending £68,000 on a classroom to be used for three years, should never have been allowed.

The £2.1million project also includes demolishing and re-building Bamber Bridge Methodist Church, on the same site, which is being paid for by the Methodists.

Headteacher Denise Sanderson said: "It was not our decision originally to add the classroom, and there was no chance of an amalgamation at the time."

The DfES refused to comment saying it was a matter for the Local Education Authority.

A spokesman for Lancashire County Council said: "The classroom extension to Bamber Bridge Methodist School was built in response to the 1998 government initiative on class size reduction of Key Stage 1 children."

He confirmed the funding, £68,486 in total, was from a DfES Standards Fund grant and said: "The DfES objective was to ensure that, as far as possible, there were no KS1 children in large class sizes from September 2001 onwards. This meant that facilities had to be provided prior to this date, and in Lancashire's case this objective was implemented one year prior to the deadline in September 2000."

The classroom was completed in September 1999, then in September 2001 proposals to amalgamate Bamber Bridge Methodist School and St Saviour's were put forward.

The spokesman went on: "Due to falling class sizes it was necessary to merge Bamber Bridge Methodist School and St Saviour's CE School. This will eventually lead to a new school building being created on the former Methodist School site, housing all the pupils."

He said that, subject to planning permission, work on the new building could begin in June. The plans were due to go before the council's planning committee, last night.

The new school will have hi-tech interactive white boards and specialist IT and science suites, and staff and pupils are hoping to be in the new building by September 2006.

Mrs Sanderson said: "Everyone at the school is very excited about the new school."