Keighley and Bradford’s schools appeals process is useless for the vast majority of parents fighting to get their children to the place of their choice, the councillor in charge of education has admitted.

Councillor Ralph Berry's acknowledgement comes as the system was branded as being “unfit for its purpose” by Tory group leader Coun Glen Miller.

He claimed parents denied their first choice of schools were being misled into believing they had a chance of winning at appeal and has called for an urgent change in the council’s admissions policy so children can attend their neighbourhood schools.

So far in 2010/11, 2,979 appeals have been lodged in Keighley and Bradford, out of which only 324 have been successful — 716 have been refused and 594 are still pending, with 1,345 cases settled satisfactorily before getting to the hearing stage. Coun Miller, who is a Worth Valley Ward councillor, said too many pupils were having to be bussed across the district because there were not enough places in their own areas.

He blamed part of the problem on the siblings rule where younger brothers and sisters were still being allowed into now full but previously undersubscribed schools where their older siblings attend.

He said: “Parents are being misled into believing they can win these appeals but it’s a waste of their time and a waste of money getting time off work to go to appeals at City Hall when they just don’t have a chance.

“I understand that schools which have previously been undersubscribed, such as Haworth Primary for example, have in the past let in children from outside of the catchment area.

“Now that some of these schools are fully subscribed, local children cannot get in due to the siblings of the children from outside of the catchment area being given priority.

“While this is clearly a perverse outcome of a well intentioned policy, it is to the detriment of the principle of children attending the schools most local to them.”

Haworth Primary head teacher Janet Parkinson pointed out that the handful of pupils in her school from outside its catchment area actually dated from a period when the school was expected to take in 45 children a year.

“We were undersubscribed because we had too many places for this catchment area,” she said. “We had a one and a half form entry of 45 pupils, although there were never enough of them to fill all our places. Because we had spare places we took in children from outside the area.

“Now that we’re down to a one form entry each year of 30 pupils that won’t be happening in future.”

Coun Berry, Labour’s portfolio holder for children’s and young people’s services, said parents had to be realistic when making school choices.

He said: “The problem is that so many people are appealing for a place with no statistical likelihood of success. It just causes distress.

“We do our level best but the system is under huge pressure. You can’t deal with lack of capacity by an appeals process.”

He added: “For an appeal to succeed there has to be places but we need money from central Government to build those spaces.

“Bradford district has one of the biggest growing school rolls in the country but we can’t magic places out of thin air.”

He said that next year parents would be given five preference choices for schools rather than the three they have now, to ease the situation.