THE reasons why Darwen needs a new academy have become caught up in controversy - and children will suffer as a result, a public inquiry was told.

Simon Huggill representing Redearth Triangle residents, said the aim of tackling deprivation and improving education had been lost and the community destroyed.

And he said that if Blackburn with Darwen Council genuinely wanted to help children in deprived areas, it was trying to put the £33million academy in the wrong place.

He added: "Our arguments about location and access are fairly small because what we need to be concerned with is that community of children.

"It's quite clear that the academy scheme is to address deprivation, this is the justification for an academy scheme.

"But we have to think very hard and long before we make fundamental changes to the urban structure policy if we are going to put a school not in the centre of deprivation but in the centre of the town.

"I think we have lost sight of what the original objectives were assigned to be."

The public inquiry, led by Inspector Christina Downes is looking into whether a secondary compulsory purchase order to clear the remaining homes in Redearth Triangle can go ahead.

The CPO from the council comes after a Government inspector overturned a previous order to buy and demolish homes, which the council applied for on the grounds that they were unfit to live in.

The latest application is on the grounds that the academy plan will benefit what is now a rundown area.

In his closing arguments to the inquiry, held at Astley Bank Hotel, Mr Huggill reinforced his belief that the academy should be built on the current site of Darwen Moorland High School.