VILLAGERS have united against proposals to build a new school on their Green Belt.

Woolmer Green residents are opposing plans by the We Need a School campaign (WNAS), to build a secondary for children living in Knebworth and the surrounding villages somewhere in the area.

Amid growing fears Woolmer Green is the preferred location, residents have now launched a counter group – Save Woolmer Green (SWG) – to keep the school out of their village.

This week, SWG spokesman Gareth Lloyd outlined the group’s ethos.

“The people behind the Save Woolmer Green campaign are concerned local residents,” Mr Lloyd said. “We believe that a secondary school in Woolmer Green would destroy village life as we know it – not only in Woolmer Green, but in neighbouring villages.

“Secondary schools are for towns – not villages. It is not needed here – 93 per cent of children in the six villages got one of their school choices in 2010.

“We also have grave concerns about the traffic consequences, and we don’t want to lose our valuable Green Belt countryside.”

A petition against the WNAS campaign has so far received more than 400 signatures.

Mr Lloyd said: “It [the petition] just shows the overwhelming weight of support not to have a school built in Woolmer Green, and to introduce a population of 900 people into a village of 1,300.”