Blunder Minister's blow to free school pioneers

The Kirklees campaign had been hailed as the blueprint for how communities could set up their own state schools – with Education Secretary Michael Gove even calling one of the parents involved his "hero."

However, Ministers could now have undermined their own flagship policy as the massive cuts to Building Schools for the Future programme in Yorkshire have cast major doubts over whether an empty school will be available for the Spen Valley parents to use.

They told the Yorkshire Post that they were determined to press ahead even if this meant finding an alternative site and converting a building into classrooms.

Uncertainty over the site for the Yorkshire parent-led school arose when Mr Gove stopped Kirklees Council's BSF funding.

The authority had planned to close Birkenshaw Middle School and move pupils to primary and secondary schools elsewhere – including a new academy planned for Batley.

A group of parents formed the Birkenshaw, Birstall and Gomersal Parents Alliance (BBGPA) because they believed this scheme left them without a community school.

Their plan to open a 900-place secondary school on the site of Birkenshaw Middle won the support of Mr Gove and David Cameron during the election campaign. Mr Gove even described Nicki Woods as his hero and both men attended a rally supporting their campaign.

The coalition Government said it wanted to encourage parents and teachers to set up their own state-funded schools if they were unhappy with the choices in their communities.

Cutting the schools building programme – which Mr Gove said was beset with delays, red tape and botched projects – has both disrupted the Kirklees scheme locally and raised wider doubts about how new schools can be paid for at the same time as the Government imposes massive public sector cuts across the board.

This setback for the Government's free school plan came as Mr Gove was forced to issue further apologies over the mistakes in the list of buildings projects cancelled by coalition government this week .

Last night, it emerged that those errors included the claim that building would have to stop at a Yorkshire school that actually closed in 2006 – RM Grylls Middle School in Liversedge.

Kirklees Council leader Mehboob Khan said losing BSF funding meant closing Birkenshaw Middle School could be delayed with plans for the Batley academy now being on hold. In turn, he said, they would affect the parent-led school plan.

"As part of our BSF plan we wanted to move from a three-tier system with junior and infants and middle schools to two tiers," he said.

"I still think this is the right thing to do but we are having to look at alternative ways to do this."

Coun Khan said Birkenshaw Middle School could stay open until the next election in 2015 as a result of the cuts, despite being scheduled to close in 2013. The campaigners had planned to open their school that year .

He also described the RM Grylls school error as "farcical".

Last night, the Department for Education did not respond to questions about the scheme's uncertainty.