ANGRY campaigners fighting plans to close three schools are threatening to take their campaign to Downing Street.

Middlesbrough Borough Council wants to close St Anthony's RC School, Middlesbrough, along with the neighbouring secondary schools of Langbaurgh and Keldholme.

Afterwards, 80-year-old campaigner Albert Burton said: "We will take this as far as we need to: if we march on Downing Street we will do so.''

A meeting of the Schools Organisation Committee today deferred a closure decision for another three months.

Facing with his staff and pupils a further three months of uncertainty, St Anthony's headmaster Chris Griffiths said afterwards: "I feel appalled. It's becoming a long running farce. It's a shame that the education authority cannot get their act together and do things properly.''

Coun Geoff Connolly, Middlesbrough Council's Commissioner for Education and chairman of the Schools Organisation Committee insists the local authority still plans to close the three schools.

The council intends to resubmit modified closure plans, with the goal of replacing the schools with a £10m state of the art city academy instead of a community school as was originally intended.

Coun Connolly said: "There are two main reasons for withdrawing the existing proposals. The first is that we recognise that we need to re-assess the way we proceed in the light of the particular concerns of the Roman Catholic Diocese about the education of children from St Anthony's.

"The second reason for withdrawing the proposals at this stage is that a new factor has entered the equation - the opportunity for a City Academy in Middlesbrough.''

Canon Michael Bayldon said the Trustees of the Diocese did not mean to be obstructive but considered it not "appropriate for them to enter into a partnership in a school, which would not have a Catholic ethos.''