BRIGHT Tribe originally wanted to inherit Ridley Hall as part of its proposed takeover of Haydon Bridge High School, it has been claimed.

Daljit Lally, the deputy chief executive of Northumberland County Council, said the Cheshire-based trust was keen to explore the historic building’s potential use as a conference facility.

But speaking at a meeting of the council’s cabinet last Thursday, Mrs Lally said the multi-academy trust had a change of heart after discovering Ridley Hall was privately owned, and not part of the package it would acquire from the local authority.

Bright Tribe is the Government’s preferred choice to take over the school as a sponsored academy, although bureaucratic delays over buildings and land have held up the process.

Mrs Lally said: “We met with Bright Tribe nearly two years ago. It thought Ridley Hall was owned by the council.

“It wanted to take it on, and thought about using it for conference facilities.

“Bright Tribe has cherry picked the assets of Haydon Bridge High School and has since made it very clear that it does not want to take on Ridley Hall.”

At the meeting, councillors and education chiefs discussed the local authority’s failed alternative to the Government’s favoured academy plan for Haydon Bridge High.

The council’s proposal, unveiled in December, was to close Haydon Bridge High as part of a merger with Hexham’s Queen Elizabeth High.

But the proposal, which would have included a newly-built school at the west end of Hexham, was turned down earlier this month by the Government, which remains keen on Bright Tribe to lead its academy plan for Haydon Bridge.

Mrs Lally raised further questions about the viability of Haydon Bridge High, which currently has fewer than 500 pupils.

She added: “The school is in a deficit of £300,000 per annum. That is leaking from other schools and we need to do something about it.”

Mrs Lally claimed the council’s own plan was a more viable option, even if Haydon Bridge pupils had to be accommodated at the existing Queen Elizabeth site in temporary buildings for three years, until the opening of a new school in 2020.

The council’s cabinet member for education and skills, Coun. Robert Arckless, admitted that Haydon Bridge High’s predicament was an “absolute mess,” and said pupils had been “blighted by uncertainty.”