SCHOOL governors are ready to fight the closure of any small primary schools under Herefordshire Council's plans for far-reaching changes to education in the county.

The changes - based on predictions of plummeting pupil numbers and the subsequent loss of central government schools funding - are billed as one of the biggest and most controversial decisions the council will ever have to take, with the prospect of bitter political and community battles ahead.

Replacement schools could be built and many more refurbished with the money the council says it can get from the government if the changes are made successfully.

Headteachers and school governors were being briefed about the plan at the time of going to press.

But a meeting of the Herefordshire Association of School Governors (HASG) on Tuesday has already voted to "actively oppose" any school closures.

"We will resist all attempts at any school closures, the figures showing falling rolls are inaccurate," said HASG chairman Steve Grist.

But there are also fears that some secondary schools could be in the frame as the plan rolls out - though no schools have been mentioned specifically.

In a statement to the Hereford Times, the council said that a successful review of the county's school provision and capacity could bring in big money from Whitehall - enough to build five new schools and refurbish several more.

The council says the plan proposes school amalgamations, with changes to admission numbers and catchment areas.

Three primaries have already shut under an education strategy based on a big fall in projected pupil numbers, which means the county gets much less government money for schools.

But there are now doubts about how big that fall is going to be. The first signs of a split in support for the strategy came when the council's cabinet met last month to debate a draft plan for the future of schools.

The plan put forward a series of options for the way rural schools can be run, including clusters of neighbouring schools working together sharing resources and staff, grouping schools together under a single head, or combining primary and secondary schools on single sites.

The plan is set against a background of closing small schools where projected pupil numbers meant they could only be kept open at the expense of larger ones.

Cabinet voted to back the draft plan but only after members spoke of their fears about the figures on which the plan was based.

Those figures, using projections from the Office of National Statistics, show a big fall in under-10s across the county between now and 2025, which meant around 1,400 fewer children starting school here over that time.

Cabinet was told that, although the council was revising and re-evaluating the figures, it was already apparent that only a "huge impact" would overturn the trend, while the number of new houses to be built over the same period did not necessarily mean more children throughout the county because younger families tended to cluster where there are homes that they could afford.

Members criticised the statistics as outdated and not accounting for the lifestyle change market that was now one of the biggest factors for families moving to Herefordshire.

The council's sums were also attacked for not allowing for parental choice dictating pupil patterns, something said to be already obvious when schools in the market towns were full or close to capacity, with parents glad of places in nearby village primaries.

Such schools could secure a future if pupils were spread around them, backed by a better bus system and car sharing schemes.

Herefordshire schools are now the third lowest funded in the country, getting £3,687 per pupil over 2008-2009, compared with a national average of around £4,000.