Parents whose children go to a split-site primary school say they will fight for a single location despite a decision by councillors last night.

Brighton and Hove City Council last year merged Goldstone Junior School with Knoll Infant School in Hove with the idea of combining them on the Goldstone site.

But because officials over-estimated the amount they would get for selling the Knoll site for housing to fund the new building, the sale has not gone ahead.

The council's schools sub-committee decided to continue to operate the new Goldstone Primary School on both sites but to allocate extra cash for employing a deputy head in each building.

But the parents said they would continue to press for the promised one school on a single site with new buildings.

Liberal Democrat councillor Jenny Barnard-Langston said the council failed to realise that, under its own policy, 40 per cent of the housing would have to be low cost, reducing its value.

She queried if the policy would be accepted at a public inquiry later this year into the Local Plan.

She suggested the council could go back to the drawing board and de-merge the schools.

Tory councillor Vanessa Brown said parents had not been properly consulted and had been given contradictory information. She called it "an unmitigated disaster."

Committee chairman Coun Pat Hawkes said two meetings had been arranged with parents. They will be at the Knoll site on Monday at 4pm and at Goldstone on June 25 at 2.30pm.

Tom Cutler, of the Goldstone Parents' Action Committee, said: "We do not want a split site under any circumstances.

"The council is embarrassed and doesn't want to de-merge for political reasons."