A fresh bid to save a historic primary school earmarked for closure will be mounted tomorrow.

Campaigners battling to retain West End Primary School in Sandys will stage a protest at Nellie’s Walk on Hamilton’s Church Street, close to City Hall, from noon to 2pm.

The school is scheduled to be axed, with Somerset Primary School retained.

A campaign spokesman said: “Government’s yet to be disclosed total cost estimates for converting either school to their proposed 21st century, fit-for-purpose facility, are very likely to be far lower for West End Primary than for Somerset Primary”.

The spokesman added: “Other factors that put West End Primary at the front of the line include its superior geographic location, its unmatched historical significance and the fact that it is the one school in Sandys Parish that has the honour of having educated the vast majority of Sandys Parish residents – past and present.”

Protesters – the “West End Warriors for Legacy” – will display placards and hand out brochures in support of retention of the school, one of several earmarked for closure in a massive shake-up of the schools system.

Most parishes will be left with just one primary school and middle schools will be abolished under the Government proposals.

The West End campaigners added that other key aspects of the West End Warriors’ position on retention of the school included safety of children, public transport accessibility, environmental factors and the school’s “already existing status as the community hub”.

The group said West End PS was founded in 1869, not long after slavery was abolished in the US, to provide education for Black children denied places at other schools in a segregated Bermuda.

The group said: “Let us not forget it is one of the oldest, continuously-operated, black, elementary schools in the western hemisphere.”