Sussex Councils are set to spend millions of pounds expanding schools to meet demand.

West Sussex County Council has announced that eight primary schools will have to offer more places.

The authority says that more primary schools will join the expansion programme in the next few months.

Expansions of secondary schools are planned to follow as larger year groups reach the end of primary education.

In East Sussex, the county council will spend more than £8 million expanding three schools.

The council currently does not have any expansion plans under public consultation but have three significant increases planned for September 2013.

These include £4 million plans at the Haven Primary School, Eastbourne while £3 million will be spent increasing St Mary Magdalene Catholic Primary School in Bexhill.

A £1.2 million project will relocate Sidley Primary School to a former site of Bexhill High School to increase its capacity.

In the last academic year, East Sussex had more than 34,000 children educated in the county’s 154 primary schools with about 3,000 places which were not filled with 26 primary schools having surpluses of 25% or more.

East Sussex’s primary school population is set to increase by about 10% by 2015/16.

About 27,000 secondary school pupils attend the county’s 26 maintained schools with 3,000 surplus places.

By 2015/16 secondary school student numbers in the county are expected to fall by about 4%.

Over in West Sussex, the number of primary school pupils is also set to increase by about 10% over the next three years.

Among the schemes currently under public consultation are plans to provide 120 new places at Elm Grove First School in Worthing and Bramber First School, also in Worthing, at a total cost of £1.7 million.

Plans are also under consultation to expand Bolnore Village Primary School to a 420-place school with effect from 2014 with estimated costs between £2.5 million and £3 million as well as expansions at schools in Haywards Heath, Bognor, Chichester and Littlehampton.

The council is also working to convert eight schools into academies by September 1 including Broadfield East Junior in Crawley, Portfield Primary in Chichester and Southway Primary in Bognor. Thomas Bennett Community College in Crawley will become an academy during the summer term.

Peter Griffiths, West Sussex cabinet member for education and schools, said: “The schemes are being put forward to meet growing demand in the areas and people's views are important to us in deciding if these are appropriate proposals.

"I hope there will be a good response to the consultations.”

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