Let's have more free schools, says Mayor

 
21 May 2013

Boris Johnson today accused London councils of “dragging their feet” over setting up scores of new free schools.

The Mayor argued that the capital’s booming population meant it was time to put “ideological” opposition to the scheme to one side, and build.

London Councils estimates the capital will need an extra 118,000 classroom places by 2016 to avoid a school places crisis. Writing in the Standard, Mr Johnson said: “Now is the time to put politics aside, swallow our ideological differences, get the funding for London and get more schools built.”

He said he was “emphatically” in favour of the Government’s free schools programme, although senior City Hall insiders have conceded they are not always being built where there is greatest need. But the Mayor said: “The majority of these schools are being set up in areas with a severe shortage of places.”

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