A PRIVATE school's £5m bid to buy the Queen Anne School site in York was today named favourite in the race to win the prime city centre site.

A report out today lists four bids to buy Queen Anne School and councillors are to ask the public what they think before making a final decision.

The £5m bid for the site is an all-education bid, already revealed by the Evening Press as being from the neighbouring St Peter's School.

The other three involve using the listed Walter Brierley building for private education and the other section of the site for housing.

Bootham School is involved in the second and the third bids, while the fourth is by a mystery bidder.

Officers at the City of York Council are to tell councillors that they have grave concerns about the increased traffic that would be generated by the three part-housing bids.

They have also revealed that St Peter's upped its bid from £2.5m to £5m.

The second and third bidders, which involve the same private school in different housing plans, are offering £7m and the fourth, £5.6m.

Council leader Coun Rod Hills said today: "The original bid to continue to use the site for education has been raised significantly from the £2.5m to the £5m now on offer. I would like to support this bid but I will, as promised, go to consultation with the local community to establish their view before any final decision is made."

Bill Woolley, assistant director for development and transport, said they could not reveal which schools or building firms were behind which bids.

The bids are for:

All education use

Education plus 82 units of town housing and apartments

Education plus 90 houses and apartments

Education plus 33 units of three-storey housing and apartment buildings.

He said there had originally been eight bids but this was cut down to four and had then looked at the potential impact on traffic and the green belt land next to the sale site.

"One of the reasons we've been taking so long is we've been back discussing with the bidders what they're going to do to mitigate the impact of traffic in Queen Anne's Road and the surrounding area," he said.

If councillors do decide not to take the highest bid and choose St Peter's, their decision will have to be referred to the Secretary of State.

Meanwhile education chiefs have just heard that they are to get £1m from the Government to pay for the bulk of the second phase of building work at Canon Lee School. This money would have come from the sale of the Queen Anne site if the Government money had not come through.

PICTURE: The Queen Anne School site in York