Infant and junior schools across Brighton and Hove will be merged as part of a citywide reorganisation.

Brighton and Hove City Council has launched a review of school places to try to meet the future demands of different areas of the city.

It has stated a wish to create all-through primary schools wherever possible, signalling the likelihood that the 12 existing sets of infant and junior schools will be amalgammated.

The first pair, West Blatchington Infant and West Blatchington Junior, are scheduled to become one school from September.

Previous merger attempts in the city have met fierce opposition.

In 2002 the council backed out of plans to merge Hertford Junior and Hertford Infants after a public outcry and a schools adjudicator ruled that Balfour Junior and Balfour Infants should not be merged because they were both performing too well.

In the same year headteacher Richard Sutton-Smith quit his job because of the difficulties of working between the sites of newly amalgammated Goldstone Junior and Knoll Infant.

The council has predicted an increase of more than 1,000 pupils by 2013 because of general population growth and the proposed developments at the King Alfred centre, Brighton Marina and Preston Barracks.

Some schools in the city will have their capacity reduced and others will be expanded. Plans have been mooted for a new primary in central Hove, to meet some of the demand from the King Alfred.

The council said it had not yet formed detailed plans of which schools will be altered.

Much of the spare capacity in the city is in the schools in east Brighton.

Whitehawk Primary, in Whitehawk Road, Brighton, has more than 200 fewer pupils than its capacity.

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