A GAY British couple claim that their popular bilingual school on the Costa Blanca in Spain has been closed because of discrimination by the local education authority.

Barrie Barlow and Tony Drewitt, from Manchester, opened the Lady of Elche International School in Alicante province last summer after their five-year-old twins, born to a surrogate mother, were bullied at their Spanish school.

The school now has 70 pupils, aged 3 to 16 and mainly British, but the Valencian education authority has ordered its closure because it does not have the necessary licence.

Barrie Barlow, 38, said that he and his partner had been unable to obtain an explanation from the town hall. “I don’t know what’s going on. I think my sexual orientation has been one of the determining factors in the closure,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the education authority said that the school had failed to submit a proper application for a licence. “Our closure order has nothing to do with the gay relationship of the owners,” she said.

Mr Drewitt and Mr Barlow sold their dermatological- testing business for £3.8 million and moved to Spain with their children two years ago. They felt that Spanish attitudes to homosexuality were more relaxed — under legislation introduced by Spain’s Government, they will be able to marry soon — yet their twins, Aspen and Saffron, were bullied at their school in Torrevieja, 27 miles south of Alicante, because of their parenthood.

Mr Drewitt and Mr Barlow opened their own school in Elche, a town famous for palm groves and shoe manufacturing, and immediately it attracted British pupils. More recently they opened the Babylon, a small hotel for gay people in Benidorm. That venture is said to be “flourishing”.

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