More than 200 campaigners heard a councillor beg education chiefs to reconsider plans to move a Mid Sussex school.

Mid Sussex district councillor Anne Jones spoke last night at a public meeting about the future of Heyworth Primary School, Haywards Heath.

She told county council officials who will have the final say on the plans: "The proposal to move the school makes me very angry because we have a heart in Haywards Heath and the heart is in the Heyworth area.

"The work done at Heyworth has made it a school people are proud of and parents want their children to go there. We've got to fight to make sure this school remains.

"Heyworth is so important that I beg the county councillors to go back and look again at their proposals. Community is what we are all about, and Heyworth is a community school."

Coun Jones' views on Heyworth, which the county council proposes to move three miles to Bolnore Village, on the outskirts of the town, won backing at the Clair Hall meeting.

Irene Balls, mayor of Haywards Heath, said the town council "strongly condemned" any plan to relocate Heyworth but supported building a new school at Bolnore. She said: "The community will simply be destroyed if Heyworth moves."

Parent David McDonald, who has one child at Heyworth and another due to start at the school, said: "The option to sell Heyworth is simply asset-stripping the part of Haywards Heath which has the least to give."

Others pointed out Heyworth's impressive academic results and the effect the increased traffic to the school at Bolnore would have on the environment while others accused county councillors of already having made their mind up on the matter.

Resident Melvyn Walmsley asked if there were any governors or teachers from Heyworth at the meeting who would be willing to speak. No hands were raised.

He said: "I'd like to know why there should be confidence in the county council when they seem to have had a one-track agenda. It just engenders suspicion."

Mike Lee, assistant director for education for the county council, said if Heyworth was moved, the council would look into safe walking routes and consider subsidising transport for children attending the school at Bolnore.

He said: "This is a consultation process and it is important people make their views known."