Parents, children and teachers were waiting to hear if funding for a new secondary school in the borough had been approved.

The government announced 261 schools across the country would receive money from a school building fund but had not released details of which of the 587 applications had been successful.

A list of 42 schools being prioritised for the cash from the Priority School Building Programme was released but the planned north Kingston secondary school was not one of them, leaving the future of children’s education in the borough uncertain.

Kingston’s executive member for education councillor Liz Green said she was currently unsure of what the move meant for Kingston and would need to find out more about what the priority list meant.

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.

The scheme aims to rebuild the most dilapidated schools in the country and was set up to replace the Building Schools for the Future programme (BSF), cancelled by Education Secretary Michael Gove in 2010.

The announcement, due on Thursday, May 25, had been delayed from December 2011.