Nearly half of all councils in England and Wales are in danger of failing to meet demand for secondary school places in the next five years, the Local Government Association (LGA) warned today.

It means 125,000 children face missing out by the 2022-23 academic year, LGA analysis of Department for Education (DfE) data shows.

The number of children attending primary school has increased in recent years, fuelled by a rising birth rate in the early 2000s, which will swell secondary school numbers in England by almost a fifth over the next decade.