A fresh attempt to ease a serious overcrowding crisis in Southend's secondary schools is poised to be launched.

Executive councillors have backed moves to create 143 new secondary places across the town to cope with an expected surge in pupils. Many secondary schools are already at bursting point, education officials revealed.

Southend's cabinet has agreed to spearhead a consultation over the proposals but it has resisted calls for school land to be sold off willy nilly to pay for better facilities for extra pupils.

Director of education, Stephen Hay, said: "A very difficult situation existed in Southend for pupils in year seven in the 1999/2000 academic year. Only Belfairs High School in Leigh had space in year seven.

"The fact there were sufficient places at all was made possible by a number of schools admitting above their admissions limit.

"In particular, Eastwood, St Bernard's and St Thomas More schools all admitted five forms of children rather than four."

Mr Hay said cash had been awarded from the Government to boost the number of secondary school places but a shortfall is still feared in the coming years.

However, he believes the number of new places needed would not justify plans for a new school.

He added: "The provision of secondary places needs to be achieved by expanding existing schools.

"The cost and availability of a new site for a school would be prohibitive."

Early predictions have suggested that Southend Council will need a 200 per cent increase in its capital programme for major projects to create better accommodation for new pupils.

Funding could come from the council's reserves or be skimmed from the overall education budget among a number of other options.

However, a suggestion that money could come from the sale of school land has angered Lib Dem council leader, David Elf.

He said: "It has been council policy in recent times that school land will not be sold off unless it is for community benefit.

"I do not want people to get the impression that we will sell off land willy-nilly. That is incorrect."

The proposals could be called in for more debate by Southend Council's social scrutiny committee.

The new places

Cecil Jones, Southend: 39

Eastwood, Leigh: 20

Shoebury High, Shoebury: 40

St Bernard's, Southend: 19

St Thomas More, Westcliff: 25

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.