PARENTS in a village last night claimed it was losing its identity after controversial plans to re-name its school were revealed.

A new £3m school in Middleton St George, near Darlington, will be called the St Andrew's and St Laurence's Voluntary Aided Church of England School.

It will be built on the site of the current Middleton St George Primary School, where children are being taught in temporary classrooms after a fire destroyed part of the building.

The nearby Sadberge Primary School is closing and pupils from the village will be taught at the new site, which could open next year or in 2005.

But angry parents from Middleton St George contacted The Northern Echo last night to express their outrage at not being consulted over the name change, which has been provisionally agreed by governors.

They were notified in a letter from the school, which said new logos and badges would be designed with the help of pupils.

One parent said: "The feeling among those of us who were talking outside the school is pretty much the same right across the board, we are not very happy.

"We have not even been consulted, they have just said that they didn't have time for that."

Deputy chair of the board of governors, Councillor Doris Jones, said last night that a decision on the name had to be made quickly in order to gain funding for the new school.

She said: "The Church felt that it should be named after those in Middleton St George and Sadberge, and it is a church-aided school.

"This name can be changed at a later date, it is not set in stone."

Middleton St George pupils are studying in the village again after a temporary spell at the disused Firthmoor Primary School, in Darlington, following the blaze in March.