CAMPAIGNERS battling to save Affetside Primary School have been given a lifeline.

The Government has agreed to investigate the process surrounding the decision to close it. The Department for Education and Skills will be looking at the way Bury's schools organisation committee considered the proposal that the Watling Street school should close.

The investigation will particularly look at the way the SOC decided Affetside was a rural school and how the committee considered the quality of alternative education.

The DfES has to act as a neutral body and will be reporting back to the education minister, Estelle Morris, on the process and not the closure decision itself.

But members of the Save Affetside School action group feel optimistic that its concerns are being addressed.

Spokesman Dawn Robinson-Walsh, said: "We have been in touch with a number of other schools around the country who have been unhappy with the SOC process.

"Since their inception, SOCs around the country have been responsible for 395 school closures, including amalgamations, 95 of which have been small schools like Affetside.

"They are becoming a rather controversial method of achieving schools closures and merit closer investigation."

A spokesman for Bury's SOC said: "The DfES has sent us an e-mail to ask for comments from the group and we will be putting a response together."

Bury LEA recommended the closure because of surplus school places in the town and has argued that the situation had already dragged on too long.

Members of the SOC, which include LEA representatives, school governors and church leaders, voted unanimously in favour of the closure, but gave no reasons for their decision in July of this year.

The school is due to close next August.