WANTAGE and Grove will need 900 extra school places in the next 15 years according to county estimates.

But King Alfred’s Academy will run out of places by 2017, raising fears about where the area’s children will be schooled.

Vale of White Horse District Council’s draft Local Plan for development recommends building 5,000 homes in Wantage and Grove by 2029, on Grove Airfield, Crab Hill, Stockham Farm and other developments.

The county council is negotiating with housing developer Persimmon Homes to get land and financial contributions for a 900-place secondary school on Grove Airfield.

But King Alfred’s, the only secondary school in the area, will be full before that is built.

Headteacher Simon Spiers said: “We have 1,800 students but some of those come from outside the catchment area in Didcot and Faringdon.

We currently take 310 students each year, but there are 363 children in the catchment area who, by 2017, will want to go to secondary school.

“The new school can’t be built by then, and my question is ‘what’s going to happen?’”

He said that any temporary solution would necessarily involve “buildings, staff and money”. He added: “I can’t see us turning kids away, but what happens when 363 turns into 390? We can’t just keep growing.”

On Monday night at Wantage Civic Hall, and last Wednesday at Grove Village Hall, Oxfordshire County Council held public consultations to ask parents what they would like to see.

Mum-of-two Cathryn Fernandez has one daughter at Grove Primary School and another about to start.

She said:“I really think children should be able to walk to school.

“It would be nice to have a secondary school in Grove.”

Another mother-of-two, Sue Wilson, from Grove, also said she would like her children to be able to go to school in Grove rather than travel into Wantage.

Oxfordshire County Council’s pupil place planning manager Barbara Chillman said the new school at Grove Airfield could be an expansion of King Alfred’s, or a school run by King Alfred’s, or it could be independent.

Mrs Chillman said: “What we hope to get out of  this consultation is figure out whether the new school will be a separate entity of a branch of King Alfred’s.”

Given the number of pupils expected, 900, it is likely to be an 11 to 16 school, with no sixth form, she said.

King Alfred’s will also be consulted and the county council will be working with them and others to work out a solution.

Wantage town councillor Jean Nunn-Price said she would like to see a schoolrunbya co-operative, where teachers, parents and pupils are all members and help run it.

The results of the consultation will be available in the autumn on the county council’s website.