A FORMER Labour council boss has clashed with a Labour MP over the site of a £26m academy campus.

The arguments over where the Consett Academy campus should be built has divided not only politicians but also the residents of Consett.

Alex Watson, former leader of Derwentside District Council, which was abolished following local government reorganisation in 2009, spoke out after his MP Pat Glass urged support for the building of the campus at Belle Vue without any further delays.

The Consett Academy opened on a split site at the start of this month following the merger of schools at Blackfyne and Moorside in the town.

But the future of the new campus remains uncertain due to a legal challenge by the Consett Green Spaces Group, which is opposed to its location at Belle Vue, and which is supported by Mr Watson.

Derwentside District Council had intended to build the academy on part of the site of the former steelworks which closed more than 30 years ago.

Mr Watson spoke out after Mrs Glass, who is supported by parents of students at the academy, said she would like to see the new campus built as quickly as possible.

Mrs Glass said: “I believe it is time for all the people of Consett to put aside differences, political or otherwise, and back our new school. There will never be a perfect site on which to build a large school.

“Whatever the rights and wrongs, there would have had to be some redevelopment on the old civic centre and leisure centre site. I am told that even the previous Derwentside District Council had earmarked part of the site for housing.

“The steelworks site, that some would prefer as the location, has its own drawbacks.”

But Mr Watson, who recently wrote to Education Secretary Michael Gove urging him to intervene over the location of the new campus, said yesterday: “Pat Glass has criticised the opponents to the current proposed playing field site for the Consett Academy and suggest we all just ‘got on’ with the proposed site despite more than 3,000 documented objections, spiralling costs to the taxpayer, no transparency, no detail and at the expense of a community’s main playing fields, Belle Vue.

“The facts are that there is a ready-made site available. Derwentside District Council had an agreed site, the brownfield site of the ex-steelworks, which already has significant development in terms of the local college, housing and restaurants.

“I can also assure Pat Glass that the Belle Vue site was never a consideration for housing by Derwentside District Council as this greenfield site was sacrosanct for local people to use in an unrestricted manner. Any delay to the academy campus lies at the county council’s doors.”