ANGRY parents are demanding to know why a school is to be closed on an estate at the centre of a £52m regeneration plan.

Closure plans have been announced for St Francis's Primary School, on Middlesbrough's Whinney Banks estate, at the hub of a New Deal for Communities scheme aimed at revitalising run down neighbourhoods.

"Instead of taking the opportunity given by central Government to rise from the ashes, they want to pull the plug out of our community," said Peter McTiernan, father of three pupils at the school.

"Parents are not interested in any closure. What we want is the complete reversal of that - the school to be improved.

It is planned to close the school on December 29, with parents claiming they were only told of the plan on June 12, in a letter from Middlesbrough Council. The wider Catholic community heard the news in an announcement from the pulpit at masses last weekend.

A spokesman for the council said St Francis has capacity for 180 pupils, but has just over 100, a number set to continue to fall.

"We wouldn't be doing our job as a Local Education Authority if we didn't look at the available options for the future of the school," he said.

Father Derek Turnham, spokesman for the Diocese of Middlesbrough, said: "We will do our very best to put every baptised pupil into other Catholic primary schools."

The announcement comes as St Anthony's RC Secondary School, in Tranmere Avenue, Middlesbrough, prepares to close this summer, despite a campaign by parents to keep it open.