Leeds council leader warns one third of areas in England could run out of school places in five years

Around a third of districts in England risk running out of school places within five years – meaning almost 80,000 young people and their families would be at risk of missing out on a place, the leader of Leeds City Council has claimed.
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The Local Government Association (LGA) claimed a “looming places crisis” was exacerbated by rules meaning councils cannot open their own new schools, or demand academies expand.

Currently, the only way councils can create their own school places is to expand already-existing schools run by the local education authority – meaning they have no power over academies and free schools. New free schools are allowed to open, but plans for these have to be brought forward by a separate organisation to the council.

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Leeds City Council leader Judith Blake is also chair of the LGA’s children and young people board. She claimed local authorities needed to be given extra powers from government to create extra school places.

Coun Judith Blake has warned around one in three local authorities could have a shortfall of school places in the coming years.Coun Judith Blake has warned around one in three local authorities could have a shortfall of school places in the coming years.
Coun Judith Blake has warned around one in three local authorities could have a shortfall of school places in the coming years.

She said: “Councils have an excellent track record of fulfilling their legal duty to ensure every child has a school place available to them and want to work with the government to meet the challenges currently facing the education system.

“It continues to make no sense for councils to be given the responsibility to plan for school places but then not be allowed to be open schools themselves.

“Councils do not want any families to have to face uncertainty over securing their child’s secondary school. But with the number of pupils is growing at a far faster rate than the number of places available and councils need to be given the powers to help solve this crisis.”

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The LGA’s annual school places analysis claims failure to create more secondary places would mean 11 council areas will face a secondary school places shortfall in 2021/22 – this is expected to rise to 50 council areas in 2025/26, failing to meet the demand of around 77,085 places.

The LGA, which represents councils across England, is calling for the government to use the forthcoming spending review to hand councils back the power to open new maintained school, along with the power to direct free schools and academies to expand to meet demand.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We are determined to create more choice for parents when it comes to their children’s education and we have created a million more school places since 2010.

“This year, almost 94 per cent of pupils received an offer of one of their top three preferences for secondary schools and more than 50 new free schools have opened this month alone, which will create over 24,000 new school places across the country.

“Local authorities already have the power to open new schools and to create new school places, and must ensure there are enough school places to meet local needs.”