Influx of immigrants forces council to build four new schools

Bradford council in West Yorkshire, where nearly 5,000 workers arrived last year, is one of many local authorities experiencing a shortfall of places in inner-city areas.

Yesterday education chiefs there said two of its existing primary schools would need to be expanded and four new ones built to cope with the increased demand for new places.

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Bradford has the second highest birth rate of any part of Britain outside London, and coming on top of that, immigration has left its school system struggling, it said.

A council report said the high number of births "has caused a shortfall in places in some parts of the district when combined with large numbers of Eastern European workers who are also moving into the district, sometimes bringing their families with them".

It added that it had been "impossible to predict the increase in numbers of newcomers" and finding places for them is "becoming much more difficult".

Bradford is just one of many local councils reporting that it is under strain as a result of record levels of immigration from Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe.

One in five primary school children are now from an ethnic minority, and some councils have been faced with massive bills to fund extra support such as interpreters as they are legally obliged to admit children from European Union member states.

At least 27,000 school-aged youngsters have arrived with their parents in the UK since ten countries – including Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic - joined the EU on May 1, 2004.

Elsewhere in the country, Wrexham in North Wales has reported that its schools are facing a similar pressure - around 50 Polish children started school there in September.

Agnieszka Tenteroba, a Polish teacher working with the newcomers, said: "First it was the husbands coming to work. People who want to stay then bring their families so we will have more and more Polish children in Wrexham."

Meanwhile in Slough, Berkshire, the council has reported that an influx of an estimated 10,000 Poles has left it facing going £15million in the red, with nearly 900 school pupils from non English-speaking backgrounds.

And in Peterborough, where there were just 22 children of economic migrants enrolled in secondary schools in January 2004, that has risen to more than 100 with one secondary school warning it was being "overwhelmed".

The Government does not collect figures for the number of children brought with them by immigrant workers, so officials in Bradford are having to base their estimates on the number of new National Insurance permits being issued - 4,650 last year.

The council's executive will now be asked to recommend research into how to expand school provision to cater for the increased number of children.

Colin Gill, executive member for children's services, said: "In those areas of the district where there are substantial changes in population size and distribution, we will need to make alterations to ensure that we provide the right number of primary school places in the right locations."

Bradford's birth rate, according to the latest figures, is the fourth highest in Britain, after Birmingham and the London boroughs of Newham and Hackney, with much of the growth thought to be within the city's more established immigrant communities.