Parents have overwhelmingly opposed the merger of two schools in Brighton.

The parents of children at Balfour Junior and Infant schools voted to fight the proposed merger, which would create a single primary school, at a meeting last night.

Brighton and Hove City Council wants to go ahead with the £100,000 merger to resolve a problem with pupil numbers.

Currently, more pupils are taken in at the infant school, leading to a shortage of places when they move to the juniors.

The council says the merger would stop this happening in future.

However, parents say the new school would be too large to give pupils the necessary attention.

If the merger goes ahead it will lead to a school with 650 places, making Balfour one of the largest primary schools in England.

The chairman of the meeting of the Balfour Action Group Against Merger (Bagam), Alec Potter, said: "It is the fact the primary school will be very, very large and we believe it will be detrimental to educational standards.

"The purpose of the meeting was to seek a mandate and the purpose of Bagam is to overturn the local education authority decision by objecting in principle on reasonable points and to complain to the council about the way it has been done."

More than 100 parents attended the meeting.

Many were concerned about future class sizes and security and wanted to know why the council could not expand the junior school to resolve the shortage of places.

Graham Wright, who has a daughter in the junior school, said: "We do not want the schools to become impersonal and that is what will happen if they are merged.

"I would like to see these schools thrive and do well but I have a gut feeling if they merge it will ruin two good schools."