See Keighley News article below. I suppose its 50 yrs since Oakbank opened (I had two terms there). Doesnt time fly !

http://www.keighleynews.co.uk/news/11498660.Work_due_to_start_next_year_on__pound_16m_new_school_in_Keighley/

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-64

Current location (optional) Wirral

I find it totally ludicrous that Oakbank has to have a lot of money spent "on bringing it up for purpose" re- 21st century when the old K.B.G.S. building still stands supreme in Kly defying all as to its future!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1959-66

Current location (optional) Haworth

From last weeks Keighley News

NEWS
New £16m Keighley school set for go-ahead


First published Thursday 12 March 2015 in News
by Alistair Shand

PLANS to demolish Oakbank School in Keighley and replace it with state-of-the-art facilities look set to get the go-ahead.

Applications to rebuild the Oakworth Road school and three other secondary schools in the Bradford district are recommended for approval at a planning committee next week.


Sport England, the Government body that provides funding to sports in the UK, had at first objected to all four plans. It was concerned about the loss of sports pitches.

But its fears now appear to have been allayed, after it was given reassurances about the sports provision planned at each site.

Sport England had particularly objected to the plans at Oakbank, where works would have left a popular hockey pitch out of action for up to three years.

Members of Airedale Hockey Club, which use the pitch, had warned the club could fold if a replacement was not found. A total of 122 people also wrote to planners to officially object to the plans.

But a new planning report says the applicant, engineering group Laing O’Rourke, is keen to find a solution to the problem.

It says the group is putting together a mitigation plan to “ensure the existing users of the artificial grass pitch have access to an artificial grass pitch suitable for the level of hockey played by Airedale Hockey Club, Skipton Ladies, and the school for the duration of the construction period”.

Sport England has agreed to drop its objection, once a legal document guaranteeing this replacement pitch is signed.

Subject to planning approval, work is due to start late this year on the new £16 million Oakbank structure.

The three-storey, L-shaped building will include a main hall, library resource centre and dining area, each extending upwards through the three floors.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-64

Current location (optional) Wirral

An interesting (well, moderately) coincidence that the planned new school building should be announced during the three-hundreth anniversary year of John Drake's original grammar school in Keighley. Drake was the well-to-do landlord of either the Lord Rodney or the Kings Arms, on Church Green - the latter I remember being pulled own in the late fifties - at the start of the sixties' vandalism. The foundation stone for Drake's school can still be seen (almost!) at the Low Street end of the stump of Cooke Lane, very high up on the LHS coming in from Low Street. There is a photograph of it on the website, I think under 'Miscellaneous', or maybe 'Old Keighley' - can't quite remember. Although records are a bit obscure on the subject (Miles Gale, the Rector of Keighley in the early eighteenth century, is thought for various Church 'political' reasons to be an unreliable source, though the only one), the first free grammar school was established by Tonson in 1684, and his school was merged with Drake's in or a bit after 1715. That 'new' school had a staff of one for some forty-odd children of varying ages.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1951-58

Current location (optional) Cottingham, East Yorkshire

Yes, Doug, the photograph is posted on the "Old Keighley" site, where I posted it in 2010. The reference to 'Fultons' on the description is no longer relevant - they've moved to larger premises! David

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1945-50

Current location (optional) Keighley