A dispute has flared up over classroom overcrowding at a school in Eastbourne.

Head teacher Janet Felkin said local authority statistics on the number of pupils at her school were out of date and unreliable.

The figures were called into question when Keith Martin, of Priory Road, refused to send his daughter to Eastbourne Technology College.

He said the level of overcrowding there would harm her education. The latest figures showed the college was 196 pupils over capacity with a total of 980 students.

But the statistics, drawn up by East Sussex Local Education Authority, were criticised by Mrs Felkin.

She said they failed to take account of a new building constructed on the college site in Brodrick Road and since the numbers were published, buildings at the college had been changed to accommodate more students.

She said: "The process of working out the figures is very long and involved so by the time they come out they are not up-to-date.

"Talk of children being kept in overcrowded classrooms is not true."

Geoff Evans, head of the admissions section at East Sussex County Council, said the figures were the latest available.

He said there would always be a problem with the figures as they came out several months after they had been collated.

Mr Martin is taking legal action in a bid to get his daughter a place at her first-preference school, Ratton.

While the dispute continues she is being taught at home in what should be her first year at secondary school.

Mr Martin said: "The figures speak for themselves."

But Mrs Felkin said: "Not only would she have a very good curriculum, she would also be taught by specialist staff in good quality specialist rooms in a group which, by anybody's measure, would be manageable."

Eastbourne Tory MP Nigel Waterson has been visiting every school in his constituency to gauge the extent of overcrowding.

He is calling for a new secondary school in Eastbourne to ease the situation.