Last week children's secretary Ed Balls revealed plans for a 200mfund to build permanent classrooms for Reception class pupils over thenext two years in areas facing exceptional growth in demand.
However, London Councils, the cross-party lobbying organisation, claimsthat the extra money will not address the issue in the long term andLondon alone needs 740 million to ensure a place for everyfive-year-old over the next five years.
It says local authorities in the capital are considering using temporaryclassrooms or expanding class sizes.
London Councils' executive member for children and young people,Councillor James Kempton, said, 'We are pleased the Government hasaccepted our case that local authorities need emergency funding to copewith the unprecedented demand they are facing for primary schoolplaces.
'Local authorities have been working hard to cope with this problem formany months now, so it is vital that the bureaucratic process ofallocating funding does not cause unnecessary delays.'
London Councils highlighted the shortage of primary school places in itsreport Do the Maths (News, 22 April.)
It pointed to a growth in the capital's birth rate as the main reasonfor a shortage of school places, which it said had risen by 20.5 percent since 2001/02.
London Councils is calling on the Government to set aside a 'pot ofmoney' that can be flexibly and quickly allocated to councilsexperiencing the most pressure.
Along with extra funding for primary school places, ministers alsorevealed they have given the go-ahead for a further six localauthorities - Barnet, Bolton, Hampshire, Peterborough, Sunderland andWigan - to be funded by the Building Schools for the Future programme(BSF).
BSF is already running in 80 local authorities with 86 of 1,000 plannedprojects completed.
SUPER-SCHOOL FOR ST JOHN'S WOOD
A 45m super-school campus will be built in St John's Wood,London, using BSF funding. The university-style campus promises toinclude four schools, a nursery, a creche, a 'police base', a learningcentre and state-of-the-art sports facilities. Four schools in St John'sWood - George Eliot Junior School, George Eliot Infant School,Beachcroft School and Quintin Kynaston Community Foundation School -will be rebuilt on the campus, which will act as a hub for publicservices and offer education from nursery to secondary school level.Local residents are being consulted about the development this monthbefore Westminster City Council seeks planning permission for theproject.