Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of the availability of school places in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area.

The statutory duty to provide sufficient school places sits with local authorities. The department engages with councils on a regular basis to review their plans for creating additional places and to consider alternatives where necessary. When local authorities are experiencing difficulties, the department supports them to find solutions as quickly as possible. Where local authorities are failing in their duty, the government will intervene.

The department provides capital funding through the basic need grant to support local authorities to provide school places, based on their own pupil forecasts and school capacity data. They can use this funding to provide places in new schools or through expansions of existing schools and can work with any school in their local area, including academies and free schools. Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council will receive just over £561,000 in the 2025/26 financial year to support the provision of new school places needed by September 2026.