Councillors have vowed to push ahead with a controversial private finance initiative to improve schools despite a catalogue of errors.

They said building work at the four Brighton schools covered by the PFI with private contractor Jarvis had been a success.

However, Green Party convenor Keith Taylor said the PFI deal for East Brighton College of Media Arts, which is threatened with closure, had been a fiasco.

He told a Brighton and Hove City Council meeting officers had got estimates of pupils badly wrong.

He said: "This has resulted in extra and unforeseen pressures on the school budget and will force the council to renegotiate the contract."

School councillor Pat Hawkes said: "PFI is not the cause of the problem. Parental perception of what the school has to offer is."

Coun Taylor said one estimate to close the school and renegotiate the PFI contract was as high as £17 million.

Coun Hawkes called it speculation and said: "It is a load of cobblers. I am dealing with fact, not speculation."

The £105 million contract with Jarvis, which runs for 25 years, is in its second year.

Coun Hawkes added PFI had been a success at Varndean, Dorothy Stringer and Patcham High and was the only way major improvements were likely to be done during the next 15 years.

The Argus has reported a series of problems at Varndean School, according to a governors' report.

Last year they led to the school being forced to stay shut for two extra days at the end of the summer holidays because work was not complete.

Relationships between Jarvis and the school reached such a low point, the headteacher refused to attend meetings.