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Tens of thousands of London children face missing out on a secondary school place by the end of the decade, stark new figures revealed today.

A shortage of almost 35,000 places across the capital is expected by 2020 in a growing capacity crisis for schools.

Town hall bosses warned that more cash was "urgently" needed from the Government to fill a funding gap of about £1 billion.

They said councils were already "straining" to cope with the largest growth in secondary school population in the country.

It is expected to increase by a further 15 per cent — up to 560,880 from 488,160 — by the end of the decade, meaning an extra 72,730 places will be needed. There is currently capacity for fewer than 40,000.

The figures from London Councils, the umbrella body for the capital’s boroughs, showed there would be a 34,830 shortfall.

Councillor Peter John, the body’s education and schools spokesman, said: "London will be missing tens of thousands of secondary places by the end of the decade unless boroughs receive the funding needed to provide them.

"In recent years there has been a shortfall of about £1 billion between the real costs of school places and the money councils receive.

"Boroughs have received just 59 per cent of the cost of the new school places provided — closing the gap by selling assets, borrowing or drawing from other sources of funding within the council.

"As London moves towards a dual pressure on both primary and secondary school places, a significant improvement is urgently required in the basic-need funding to make sure parents and pupils get the school places they deserve."

London Councils is calling on ministers to fund new places in the capital at a level that reflects the real cost of providing them.

Its report reveals that boroughs have spent approximately £1 billion between 2010 and 2015 making up a shortfall in education funding. That is equivalent to more than a third of all the annual council tax bills in London.

In primary schools, pupil growth of three per cent is forecast up to the end of the decade — about 80,000 additional pupils. But due to higher-than-average pupil growth at primary level for a number of years, the pressure is now emerging in secondaries.

London will not only have a larger secondary pupil population than the rest of the country but its rate of growth will almost double by the end of the decade — increasing by 15 per cent, compared with nine per cent across the rest of England.

Councillor John added: "Council budgets are straining from a 70 per cent real-terms reduction in core government funding, as well as additional pressures of rising demand for social care."

The Department for Education said that almost 151,000 primary and secondary school places were created in London between 2010 and 2014.

There are currently 70 mainstream free schools in the capital and a further 62 in the pipeline, which will create nearly 95,000 additional places once full.

A DfE spokesman said: "We want every parent to have access to a good school place for their child. That is why we doubled the funding for school places to £5 billion in the last Parliament, correcting the 200,000 decline in places between 2004 and 2010.

"Significant investment during the last Parliament has helped create almost 500,000 new school places between 2010 and 2014 across England. A further £7 billion has already been committed to create even more places over the next six years.

“London has benefited significantly from this investment, receiving almost £2 billion in the last four years – almost 40 percent of all the funding provided to local councils for new places.”