A FAITH school can stay in its temporary home for another year, despite councillors’ claims that its management does not care about the welfare of pupils.

The Olive School asked Bolton Council for approval to remain in Waterloo Street, near the town centre, until 2020 — a site described as “the most dangerous place for a school” due to its proximity to the A666.

But the council’s planning committee decided yesterday that it should only be granted a further 12 months’ approval, in order to press the school into moving to a better location.

The Muslim faith primary school opened at Ashton House, a building previously earmarked for a hotel, last September with 120 pupils.

Cllr Elaine Sherrington said: “If they cared about the children in their care they would have found somewhere within 12 months which is appropriate for those children.

“They haven’t, but now they want to have a load more children coming in that they can’t look after.”

Rhian Jones, speaking in support of the application, said that there had been no issues with traffic, noise, or contamination since the school opened.

She added that the school was close to entering into a contract to purchase a permanent site.

Building near town centre is 'worst place to put a school in Bolton'

Cllr Hanif Darvesh, who chairs the committee, said that the reason there have not been traffic issues is that the school is not operating at its full capacity and that the situation would worsen once it has up to 300 pupils.

He added that refusing the application would leave parents “in limbo”, so he was prepared to “live on the edge” for another 12 months only in order to motivate the school to push ahead with moving to a new site.

Cllr Bob Allen agreed, saying: “We can’t simply throw these children out at this stage in the school year, but we do need to put pressure on the management to find a more suitable location.”

If any child was hurt crossing the road to the school, Cllr Andy Morgan added, then the blame would lie with the school’s management.

Cllr Norman Critchley wanted the application to be refused, saying that he could not abide children being “exposed to that environment”.