THE future of a nursery remains uncertain after talks yesterday.

Parents and teachers at Albert Hill Nursery, Darlington, met council official Paul Campbell. But they emerged after an hour-and-a-half saying they still do not know if the nursery will be saved.

Darlington Borough Council announced plans last month to close the nursery and merge it with Gurney Pease Primary School - less than a year after it became the second nursery in the country to receive a Quality Assurance Award.

The move met with fierce opposition from parents who also rate the nursery highly.

Mr Campbell, assistant director of client services at the council, attended the meeting to outline proposals for the future of the nursery.

Speaking after a heated meeting, one parent said: "It looks like it's a done deal - we can't get enough information."

Paul Morris, whose three-year-old son Dean attends the nursery, said: "We ask questions but we are not getting the feedback.

"When the proposals actually go through, we'll find out more but until then we won't. We'll keep fighting - that's all we can do."

His partner, Julie Reeve, said: "We haven't really got many answers. We thought Mr Campbell was here to update us about the proposals but it seems he was only here to underline the proposals.

"What we want is answers, which he's trying to collect from other sources.

"It's answers we need and a lot of them seem to be the responsibility of the head of Gurney, which doesn't help us because their school stands to get more money if the plans go ahead."

A spokeswoman for Darlington Borough Council's education department said Mr Campbell had attended the meeting to discuss the nursery's amalgamation, but parents had been more interested in the starting up of the new school.

She said: "He said it was hard, as these sort of meetings are as they can be very emotive, but he felt it went as well as could have been expected.