The relaunch of a failing school raised expectations which were impossible to fulfil, a council report says today.

Troubled Marina High School in Brighton was relaunched last year as East Brighton College of Media Arts under the Government's Fresh Start scheme.

But the school ran into problems and its so-called 'superhead' resigned this year.

Staff were angry when they discovered that a letter from education director David Hawker indicating serious problems at the school had been kept from them.

Head Tony Garwood and chairman of governors Frieda Warman Brown - also Brighton and Hove's lead education councillor - knew about the letter, which raised concerns about pupil behaviour, high exclusion rates and staff morale.

Both of them kept quiet about it. Mr Garwood has since resigned and Coun Warman-Brown stepped down from the board of governors.

Since then the school's fortunes have revived and a new head, Dr Jill Clough, will take over in January.

Brighton and Hove Council launched a scrutiny investigation into what went wrong at the school.

Its report makes 21 recommendations for improvements if Fresh Start should ever be considered again.

One recommendation is that speed should not be the driving force in any relaunch.

Councillor Jackie Lythell, who chaired the panel, said a copy of the report would be sent to the Education Department.

She added: "It more or less gave this council, the parents and pupils Hobson's choice of Fresh Start or closure."

She said: "We found that when Fresh Start was announced, it raised expectations for the future that were not possible to achieve given the limited time, planning and resources. It therefore let down the pupils, parents and teachers."

Witnesses told the panel the school was simply not ready for the relaunch and it was hard to get the media aspect going.

Eventually this was largely dropped in favour of giving pupils a decent basic education.

Coun Lythell said: "Hard lessons for the future were learned through this investigation."

She added that through the investigation, "We also learned there were a lot of good things about the school and we are gladdened to know it is improving."

Government inspectors who visited the college this week noted reasonable progress overall in the school.