TEN Bolton primary schools are under threat as education chiefs look to wipe out thousands of surplus places.

Education chief Cllr Don Eastwood has admitted about 10 out of 104 primary schools could close because of falling pupil numbers.

But he denies schools have already been earmarked for closure ahead of the consultation exercise.

He said: "Obviously there is the potential for 10 schools to close because that is how many surplus places we have.

"But we are saying this has the potential to happen not that it will happen and parents should not panic.

"We are carrying out this review and working with colleagues in housing and leisure to try and find other options.

"Personally I am not in favour of mothballing schools for future use because they can just fall into ruin but there can be other ways.

"For instance there were large numbers of surplus places at the Deane and Masefield County Primary but we did not close them - we took out the spare places by re-locating Woodside School on those sites."

But Conservative Cllr John Walsh claims Labour councillors are openly talking about the possibility of school closures behind closed doors but keeping parents in the dark about the scale of the problem.

He does not believe there is a hit list of threatened schools but said: "A leading Labour councillor and ex-Mayor came out of a Labour Group meeting and told me '10 schools are under threat', which is not very helpful when there is a review taking place.

"This whole process is causing uncertainty for parents because some of them already know which local schools are very much under-used.

"Their fears have been heightened not eased by this review because it will take so long to come to any conclusions."

Cllr Walsh also criticised a series of five public meetings claiming the areas discussed are too large and called on the debate to centre on small cluster groups of schools.

"The problem is that the guidelines say children should not have to travel more than two miles to school - in Bolton this could mean children from Egerton going to school almost in the centre."

Bolton currently has 3,700 surplus desks in schools which will rise to more than 5,000 in 2002.

Statistical adjustments will probably mean the council will have to take out 2,396 of those and the review panel will make its recommendations in July.

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