TEACHERS, governors and councillors have rounded on plans to build an academy school in the borough.
A planning application for a new primary in Merstham is expected to be lodged by Surrey County Council within months.
Up until now, opposition has focused on plans to develop the school on green belt land off Battlebridge Lane.
But now fresh fears have arisen after it emerged the new school is likely to be an academy, and not a state-run school.
Because of a clause in the 2011 Education Act, introduced by Education Secretary Michael Gove, any local authority looking to build a new school must submit plans for it to be an academy or free school.
It means Surrey County Council would build the school but potentially have no say in how it is run.
Teachers and governors at borough state schools said the move could be detrimental to the local education system.
Rosie Norgrove, vice chair of governors at Sandcross Infant and Junior School, said: "I'm very much against it. The Government talks about opening up options but it closes them for parents. Already there is no option; the council has to go for an academy."
Robin Spencer, a semi-retired supply teacher who has taught in primary and secondary schools across the borough, said: "It's deplorable that the children in the Battlebridge area will be deprived the opportunity of attending a normal state school. Academies, by their nature, are divisive and elitist without any local or democratic control."
Councillor Jonathan Essex, whose party has focused exclusively on the site of the proposed school and not how it will be run, said: "The Green Party is against academy schools but if the government is forcing Surrey County Council to go down this route we must ensure they run on ethical grounds."
He said the academy school should follow union rules for taking on staff with regards to pay and conditions, ensure it opens up the admissions policy and doesn't operate on a selection basis. He also said it should be sponsored by an existing secondary or sixth-form school.
A spokesman for Surrey County Council said: "It is too soon in the process to know whether the proposed new school in Battlebridge Lane will be an academy. When a new school is proposed we now have a duty firstly to seek a free school or academy proposal to run it.
"We have to submit all proposals for running the school, an analysis of them and our preferred proposer to the Department for Education. The Secretary of State considers this information and decides whether our preferred proposer or another one will be the successful proposer."
Academies are publicly-funded independent schools, free from local authority and national government control. They are able to set their own pay and conditions for staff, their own curriculum and to change the length of their terms and school days. The Academies Act 2010, which was given royal assent in July last year, enables schools to convert to academy status.