TEMPORARY classrooms will have to be built across Redbridge this year to provide 120 emergency primary school places - and the council admits the problem is set to get worse.

The cabinet will meet next week to discuss plans for increasing capacity at four of the borough’s primaries to accomodate the borough’s burgeoning school-age population.

The situation is so severe that councillors are even considering building new schools to meet demand - but only if sufficient funding can be found.

Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, Cllr Michael Stark, said the shortage was a London-wide problem.

He said: “Councils desperately need extra money from the Government.

“We’ve built two new junior schools in the south of the borough and we are looking at spaces in Chadwell and Ilford Jewish Primary for new schools. We’re looking at all these things, but it comes down to money.

“It’s going to be a problem in the next two or three years, as long as the recession is going on. This is a problem that is going to get worse.”

Plans currently on the drawing board include temporary classrooms at Fullwood Primary in Barkingside, Farnham Green Primary in Seven Kings, Downshall Primary in Seven Kings and Christchurch School in Ilford.

The council is also trying to buy Ilford Jewish Primary in Barkingside to create a new multi-faith school. Pupils at the existing school would move in with nearby Jewish secondary, King Solomon, if the plan went ahead.

London councils, a coalition which represents the capital’s local authorities, said a recent population spike in the capital, coupled with a reduction in parents sending their children to private schools because of the recession, had increased the shortage of places.

Parents in Wanstead and Woodford have reacted with concern to the news.

Mum-of-three Samantha Stovin-Clark said: “For me you hope that once you’ve got your child in, any younger ones will also get in, but it is awful there are not enough spaces.

“But it’s easy to say the council or Government should spend more money on schools.”

Elizabeth Canavan, who has three children at Aldersbrook Primary along with a two-year-old she hopes to send there, said: “It is a concern for a lot of parents. There are people at our primary school who have to travel a long way because there’s not enough spaces at schools near to them.

“And it conflicts with the idea that children should walk to school if they have to travel long distances by car.”