Southend's long-running squeeze on secondary school places is to be eased thanks to a £4.5million Government boost.

The borough has been allotted almost 600 extra spaces for pupils aged 11 and over.

The news comes after Southend Council warned in September the number of 11-year-olds in the town will outweigh the number of places by September 2002.

Although there is now enough space for pupils in the 14-plus and 15-plus age group they will be replaced by much larger numbers now in primary schools.

At the start of the 1999/2000 academic year, 11,002 pupils were in the town's secondary schools. The forecast for 2002 is 11,787 while the estimated school capacity would be 11,698.

The council has been given credit approval to borrow cash to fund 459 places at its six non-selective schools over the next three years.

This equates to three extra forms for every year of secondary education. The authority is now in discussion with the senior schools to work out where to put the new places.

The town's two Catholic schools, St Thomas More for Boys and St Bernard's High School have each been allotted a further 60 places each.

Assistant education director at Southend Council, Alistair Robertson, said: "Altogether this amounts to £4.5million worth of new school places and is a considerable boost to the town. It will really help to solve our growing problem of lack of secondary places in the town."

The new places could be at Belfairs, Shoebury, Eastwood, Cecil Jones, Prittlewell or Thorpe Bay schools.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.