A crucial funding grant for a new secondary school to alleviate Kingston’s school places crisis has been stalled by the Government.

The new, eight form of entry secondary school on the North Kingston Centre site is due to open in September 2015 to help address the shortage of school places in the borough.

But Partnership for Schools, which manages the bidding process for the department of education, has deferred the decision until after the London Mayoral elections in May.

Kingston’s executive member for education, Councillor Liz Green, said the delay was not critical, as it is expected that works will need to start in September 2013 for the school to open on time.

She said: “We understand parents’ concerns but there are no changes in the current situation, we are still working towards the new secondary school.

“We are not at the point where we have to start building but we will get to that point.

“We are still putting pressure on the department to say we need to know what’s going on.”

The school was due to be funded by the Labour Government’s Building Schools for the Future programme, but this was axed by the coalition.

Kingston Council is now waiting to hear if its bid for a new school has been included in the Government’s Priority Schools Building Programme, which will use private finance to rebuild schools across the country.

An announcement about the scheme’s outcome was first due in December last year, then last month, and both parties have expressed frustration following the latest delay.

Coun Green said: “It’s very frustrating. We know that parents want assurance for what’s going to happen and I don’t like not being able to give that assurance.”

Tory Councillor Andrea Craig said although nothing could be decided until May she thought the council should be looking at alternative options if the funding is not allocated, such as a free school.

She said: “My job as the shadow is not to find solutions but in the interest of the children I have been doing that because it’s the right thing to do.

“The whole thing is in jeopardy potentially – because of that it does wind me up.”

A secondary school is needed to boost educational desert.

In 2008, the council accepted parents’ long-standing demand for a new secondary school in North Kingston, which has been the epicentre of the schools places crisis and described by some as an educational desert.

Of the three secondary schools in the area, the two Tiffin schools are selective, taking a large majority of students from outside the area, and Kingston Grammar School is fee-paying.

According to the council’s latest projections, the borough will need 14 more forms of entry by 2020 – eight at the proposed north Kingston school and six across the remaining non-selective institutions.

A basic need allocation of £5.3m for 2012-13 has been used to expand the capacity of seven junior schools, as well as providing a new primary school in Surbiton.

But, to date, basic need funding has not been an adequate means of funding large scale projects such as a new secondary school.

This has been recognised and there is now an extra option within the Priority Schools Building Programme for inclusion based on demographic growth in addition to rebuilding existing ones in urgent need of repair.