TOP Hampshire education chiefs are to visit three Romsey schools today - including one threatened with the axe - before making crunch decisions about sweeping changes.

Twenty members of Hampshire County Council's education policy committee will inspect Halterworth Primary School, Romsey Abbey school and Ampfield Primary School.

More than a century of village-based education will end if the school at Ampfield closes, as seems likely. Pupil numbers have been in freefall, from 78 in 2002 to just 27 this year.

Romsey Infant and Junior schools also face the axe, and pupils could be forced out to primary schools at Halterworth and Cupernham.

The announcement, made in March, was triggered by plummeting pupil numbers.

Surplus places in Romsey primary schools are set to double in the next five years, with more than one in four predicted to stand empty by 2009.

Today councillors, led by education committee chairman Mel Kendal, will talk to staff, head teachers, governors and pupils before looking at the radical proposals.

Next week the team will tour Romsey Infant and Junior schools and Cupernham Infant and Juniors.

Education chief Don Allen, who is due to make the final decision about the schools, said: "These visits are essential to allow committee members to see the communities for themselves and make informed recommendations on the future of these schools.

"Members are given a huge amount of information but being able to see the schools first hand ensures that thorough investigations are completed before any recommendations are made."

Campaigners at the Romsey Infant and Junior schools earlier this year launched a bid to save the schools and put forward their proposal - to combine the two into one primary school.

They have added hundreds of signatures to their petition and, in April, scores of protesters turned out for a public meeting on the issue.

The education policy committee is due to discuss the possible closures on October 12.

They will make a recommendation to Hampshire education boss Don Allen, who will make his decision on October 14.

If he rules that schools are to shut, there will be time for the public to lodge objections before it goes to the independent schools' organisation committee for a final ruling.