£200m for New Primary Reception Classes

Ministers announced that the funding will be made available over the next two years in areas facing exceptional growth in demand.

Specifically, it will be allocated to local authorities facing a 15% growth in four and five-year-olds across their areas between September 2008 and September 2011.

All bidders will be expected to build extra permanent places by September 2011 and money will be held back from future capital funding allocations where actual pupil numbers fall short of predictions.

Local authorities will have four weeks to bid for the funding and allocations will be made in September – with funding released in 2010-11.

Annual pupil number figures, published in April, show increases in reception class pupils between January 2008 to January 2009 in 126 local authorities – with an average growth of 3.3%

But there are specific areas, particularly in London, which are forecasting much larger, unanticipated demands over the next three years and have a shortage of primary school places across their area.

The funding comes on top of the £1.75 billion of additional investment being made available through the Primary Capital Programme over the next two years – supported by significant investment from local authorities.

Over 700 primary schools have already been rebuilt or completely refurbished since 1997 – but the Primary Capital Programme will extend that and revamp half of all primary and primary-age special schools by 2022-23 as part of local authorities’ long-term school rebuilding plans.

The funding is also on top of the £939 million brought forward from 2010-11 school budgets to 2009-10 with a further £30 million for play facilities – to accelerate thousands of school modernisation projects across England by 12 months and boost the construction industry.

Ed Balls said: “Parents should be able to send their children to a local school they want – and by law, it is down to local authorities to make sure there are sufficient school places available to meet parental demand across their areas.

“It is absolutely right to give additional funding, on top of record capital investment, to build extra classrooms and facilities in areas facing sudden increases in demand which could not reasonably have been forecast.

“Housing children in mobile or hired classrooms is only a temporary solution – so it is vital that local authorities facing the greatest pressure on their capital budgets address these issues urgently using this emergency funding and the longer-term Primary Capital Programme.”