CHURCH leaders have challenged council, civic and business leaders to join with parents and teachers in backing their plans to create a new school for Cinderford by September 2012.

It is proposed that Trinity School will open using the existing buildings at Heywood Community School, and Heywood will close.

Tim Cracknell, chair of Cinderford Churches Together, says the town is "desperately in need of a school offering outstanding education to serve Cinderford's children for generations to come.

"Around 50 per cent of parents in Cinderford send their kids out of town for their education. Our plan is to reverse that trend, creating a mainstream state funded school with a distinctive Christian ethos of high expectations and exceptional pastoral care to rival the best schools in Gloucester, Ross and Monmouth."

Trinity School will be based on Trinity Academy in Thorne on the outskirts of Doncaster, which was this year judged 'outstanding' by Ofsted.

"Thorne is a town just like Cinderford with children just like ours," says Tim Cracknell. "If their children can achieve, so can ours."

Community consultation will start later this summer, with events at local schools, children's nurseries, pubs, community halls and homes.

Tim adds: "As a fourth generation Forester it has become clear to me that for far too long people outside the Forest have made decisions that have run down the town and our schools and denied our children the best."

•A decision on whether Gloucestershire College will build a new college campus on the Northern Quarter in Cinderford, replacing Five Acres, is expected imminently.