A budding politician has called for action to avert a potential crisis in primary school places.

Binnie Joshi Barr, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Colne Valley, wants the Government to take immediate measures to head off a shortfall in the Colne Valley.

According to Labour Party figures the valley is on track to run out of places as early as next year and members claim that parents face a summer of worry.

Ms Joshi Barr, who runs Batter Sea fish and chip shop in Linthwaite, claims the number of places available in September 2013 will only just meet demand and that going forward many children will miss out on their first choice. She fears schools may have to build temporary classrooms on playgrounds.

“Parents will be rightly concerned about the imminent shortage of primary places in Colne Valley,” she said. “It will cause very real problems for people, especially as we’re a rural constituency and it’s not as if the next primary school is a stone’s throw away.

“Already in other parts of the country children are having to be taxied to neighbouring towns and villages to get to school at great expense.

“Councils are looking at using bingo halls and redundant churches as potential classrooms and schools are having to split their pupils over as many as five lunch sittings.

“The Government has to take action now to build new schools and properly extend existing schools so the Colne Valley doesn’t face the same situation.”

A spokesman for Kirklees council confirmed that action had been taken locally to deal with spikes in local population growth.

He said: “Nationally there is a shortage of primary places. Here in Kirklees we identified this growth and responded to meet the need for September 2012 and again for this September by working with our schools.

“The pupil population across the authority peaked at approximately 5,896 for reception-aged pupils in 2012 and shows a small dip to 5,770 reception-aged pupils in 2013 and 5,807 for reception-aged pupils in 2014.

“Population growth is not uniform across the local authority, but is occurring in specific areas, particularly Huddersfield North and South West and Dewsbury West.

“Making sure there are enough places is a top priority for the council and we will continue to work in partnership with our schools to increase places for 2014 in the areas where they are needed.”

According to the Department of Education (DfE), local authorities nationally will create an extra 110,000 primary places this autumn, but this will fall short of the 230,000 places that the National Audit Office says are required.