A CAMPAIGN to save a village school from closure has taken to the airwaves.

Dawn Robinson-Walsh and Joanne Wilcock, who are fighting to keep Affetside Primary School open, both appeared on Westminster Hour on Radio Four to talk about why the 123 year old school should stay open.

Chairman of the school governors Dawn and Affetside resident Joanne said that closing the 26 pupil strong school could rip the heart out of their picture postcard community on the Bolton/Bury border.

Dawn said the threat of school closure was deterring young families from settling in the village and prompting a few to move away so they could send their children to schools within their own community.

She said: "It makes it an ageing population. People with young children are not going to move in."

Joanne, a part time French teacher, reluctantly chose to send her daughter to a school in Ainsworth, when she started school in August because she did not want to disrupt her education if the school closed.

On the programme Affetside resident Joanne called for Bury Council to pay the extra cost it would need to keep the school open because the village does not have any other facilities.

She said: "The school building is also used by the whole community. Without the school we have nothing. We realise it does cost more to keep the school but we do not have all the normal facilities that most council tax payers rightfully take for granted.

"We don't have pavements, a playground or places such as a library. We are not asking to have our cake with a cherry on the top -- we just want a few crumbs."

Last July Independent body Bury School Organisation Committee voted for the school to close. Bury Council are in favour of the school closing because they insist it is not cost effective educating such a small number of pupils in the school especially at a time when birth rates are falling.

The school is due to close in August 2003.

Paul Cooke, head of School's Planning and management in Bury said the reasons behind the decision to close were basically demand for places, cost effectiveness and financial viability.

A Save Affetside School Action Group has been set up by residents and parents have even brought a judicial review of the decision made by the Bury SOC -- which they lost. They are now seeking leave to appeal against the decision.