PARENTS will no longer be able to choose which school they want their children to attend if plans go ahead to reduce all school classes to 30 pupils, claim Conservatives at County Hall.

Their allegations follow protests from parents in Wilpshire, Clayton-le-dale, Salesbury and Mellor who say they will keep their children from school because they have been told they must attend schools in either Blackburn or Hyndburn

But the Labour group on Lancashire County Council says there has been no change in policy and most parents will be able to make their own choice.

The government has set targets for councils to reduce infant classes to 30 pupils or fewer early in the new millennium.

But Conservatives say that when a school has admitted enough pupils to put 30 in each class, other children will be turned away.

Education spokesman Coun Bill Thompson said: "In recent years the principle of parental choice ensured that 98 per cent of pupils were placed in schools preferred by their parents.

"The government recently announced that £200 million a year was given to education authorities to provide extra places in good and popular schools.

"Lancashire County Council received more than £1 million for this purpose. Why has it then abandoned parental choice.

"In areas of the county where schools are full and overflowing, it is inevitable children will have to be bussed to other parts of the county."

Education committee chairman Coun Hazel Harding replied: "There has been absolutely no change in policy.

"It has always been the case that when a school reaches its admission numbers parents are offered another place for their child.

"There is a right of appeal and appeals are often successful. Those appeals are totally independent of the county council."

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