Today thousands of children across south London learnt what secondary school they will be attending in September.

But with many local authorities having far more applications than places hundreds of parents and children are set to be disappointed and not get into any of their first three choice schools.

Merton is one of the worst affected councils in the country with just 1699 places for 2060 year 7 children in the borough- a shortfall of 361.

Croydon also falls slightly short with 4220 first year secondary school places for 4260 applications.

The actual shortfall could be much higher as the figures only apply to on time applications received before January.

In contrast Sutton has 3084 places for 2240 children and Wandsworth has 2177 but received only 2058 on time applications.

Achieving for Children, the company running children’s services in Kingston and Richmond, has said 1,933 places are available in Kingston but were unable to say how many entry to year 7 applications had been made.

The Local Government Association has issued a call for councils to be handed the powers to open new secondary schools, saying without them authorities will not be able to ensure every child has a school place.

Roy Perry, chairman of the Local Government Association's children and young people board, said: "Councils have a statutory duty to ensure every child has a school place available to them but find themselves in the difficult position of not being able to ensure schools, including academies, expand.

“Finding suitable sponsors with the capacity to take on the running of a successful new school is also proving a challenge.

"Councils have already created an extra 300,000 primary places, but those children will soon need to move up to secondary schools.

“If academies are not willing to expand, then powers to create new schools should be returned to local authorities themselves if they are unable to secure high quality free school sponsors in their communities."