Multi-millionaire Carphone Warehouse boss Charles Dunstone is expected to sign up within months to sponsor Preston's first city academy, the Lancashire Evening Post can reveal.

Lancashire County Council's schools chief Coun Vali Patel says the controversial deal is expected to be tied up before the end of the year.

From September Tulketh Community Sports College is set to close and become part of Fulwood High School and Arts College.

Then, as soon as the sponsorship is tied up, a consultation on converting Fulwood into an academy will begin - again, expected to start before the end of this year.

Stakeholders including the school, parents, councillors and MPs will be consulted and a series of public surgeries will be held where anyone will be able to air their views.

The academy plan has come up against well-publicised resistance from some parents and the National Union of Teachers (NUT).

Coun Patel said: "The consultation needs to be within the next 12 months before starting the academy itself.

"We are targeting September 2009 so it will be sometime in the latter part of this year once the sponsor signs."

Asked about Mr Dunstone, he said: "I think it will be this year we are expecting him to sign."

Once the deal is tied up it is expected that the Fulwood campus will undergo major renovations and modernisation - as opposed to being based in an entirely new building, Mr Patel said.

But Ken Cridland, secretary of the NUT in Lancashire, said: "The more we begin to hear the worse it becomes in terms of the lack of democratic accountability and the gradual pulling to bits of education in the private sector.

"It is not at all clear to us why a private firm like Carphone Warehouse would like to be involved."

Mr Patel defended academies, adding: "First of all it brings fresh management. It also brings resources to the school to provide a variety of good facilities for children in the school."

Charles Dunstone, 43, is ranked 83rd in the Sunday Times' Rich List 2008 and is said to be worth £904m. He employs around 1,500 people at the Carphone Warehouse base in Tulketh Mill, Preston.

The Lancashire Evening Post revealed last June that Mr Dunstone and his firm was in the frame to sponsor the academy.