A NEW £12m school for children in East Cleveland looks likely to be built in one of the area's smallest towns.

But opposition councillors have criticised the plan, saying they believe the district's youngsters could have had a better college from an abandoned deal with private sponsors.

Planners at Redcar and Cleveland Council have identified the site of the current De Brus School at Skelton for the new building.

If it is chosen children from Brotton, Loftus and surrounding areas will have to be bussed to school.

The new Freeborough Community College building is to replace its three current centres in Brotton, Skelton and Loftus - with just one school for its 1,100 students.

On Tuesday councillors at Eston Town Hall discussed the proposal by the authority's planners to build at the Skelton site and were given an update on discussions with the developers.

The report said that the Skelton site has the best transport options and fewest planning problems.

However, some lifelong learning committee members - including chairman Richard Rudland - expressed worries from parents about future transport costs.

The lifelong learning scrutiny committee councillors agreed to recommend approval of the Skelton site to the more powerful executive committee, which will make its final decision on the matter on Tuesday.

Previous discussions about a £16m Freeborough College academy were held between the council and commercial sponsors, Vardy Foundation. Talks broke down when the council disagreed about what should be on the academic curriculum.

Steve Kay, leader of the Independents, argued that the authority would have been better off persevering with the commercial sponsors.

He said: "I welcome the new school for East Cleveland, but believe it will not have the facilities planned for the earlier city academy proposal, which would have attracted £16m of outside money into the area.

"What we are getting is, in my opinion, second best.

"The new college will, nevertheless, be a marvellous facility for Skelton and a great improvement educationally on the present situation.

"What concerns me is the loss of bona fide secondary education from Loftus, a town that is becoming increasingly run down and marginalised by the council."