The school places crisis has taken a step in the right direction after a teachers union today launched a campaign to fight it.
The National Union of Teachers (NUT) has created a website - theschoolplacescrisis.com - which lists shows the shortage of school places in every London borough and the foreseeable shortfall if ministers do not act.
Barking and Dagenham is listed as having a minus 2.7 per cent shortage in places, and the site predicts this could rise to minus 18.9 per cent by 2016/17.
The union is calling on the government to ensure extra places are needed and to give local authorities back the power to open new schools, which was removed by the Academies Act 2010.
General secretary of NUT Christine Blower said: “Local authorities know best about where and when places are needed in their communities.”
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