THE heart of the community will be "ripped out" if plans to demolish Christopher Whitehead High School go ahead, it has been claimed.

Speaking at a meeting of the St John's Traders and Residents' Association last night, chairman Dennis Ogle said that the plans went against common sense.

"I winced when I heard that Christopher Whitehead was a prime site for a supermarket," said Mr Ogle.

"You have to look at the degradation to the community if you moved a school of that size on to the periphery. To physically lift the school then put it in Tudor Way defies common sense.

"It would rip the heart out of the area and take children out of the community."

The meeting also heard that no application has yet been made by Tesco supermarket to knock down the school.

But any planning application could hold up Worcester City Council's decisions about other supermarkets being considered, members were warned.

At the moment, three applications have been put forward for various parts of the city, including an application by Sainsbury's which wants to build at Swanpool Walk, in St John's.

The building would occupy about 45,000sq ft of land where the St John's sports centre now stands, making it around twice the size of the nearby Pioneer Co-op store.

The Smoke Stack pub, the former Cordle's grocery and the former Zig Zag nightclub would be demolished in order to create a road into the supermarket car park. Sainsbury's has pledged to build a replacement sports centre in Malvern Road.

Tesco has unveiled proposals for a store next door at the high school, which could be replaced by a new nine-form entry school at Grove Farm on the outskirts of St John's.

Safeway has submitted an application for a supermarket in Hylton Road and Asda wants to build a store on the former city cattle market.