AN OVERSUBSCRIBED primary school is appealing against a decision by county councillors to refuse its nursery expansion plans.

Cutteslowe Primary School applied to Oxfordshire County Council to expand its nursery from 26 full time places to 39 full time places, but has been told that there is no money to support the proposal.

The county council is spending £2m on the school in Wren Road – which converted to sponsored academy status at the beginning of this month to make it two form entry.

The school already takes 39 children in the morning nursery and 29 in the afternoon and asked for £125,000 to extend a small classroom.

After a meeting of the county council cabinet on Tuesday, headteacher Jon Gray told the Oxford Mail: “I am just disappointed.

“We have to consider whether to let lots of parents down and whether we go to a 26 place nursery.

“It just means that we have to let children down.”

He said the school was going through the complaints procedure with the county council to challenge the decision.

The £2m from the county council is already funding building work that will create six new classrooms and an internal refurbishment to be completed by September 2014.

The nursery may have to reduce back to 26 places by September 2014 if the school is unable to fund an additional classroom extension as the school gradually has to increase to 60 pupils per year.

Mr Gray told councillors: “We need the space, we have already got 39 children in the morning and 29 in the afternoon as the school increases in popularity.”

But cabinet member for education Melinda Tilley said: “There is no money for this and even if we could find the money we are already spending £2m on Cutteslowe for it to become a two form entry school.There are other funding streams. It is a lot of money to shell out when we are already spending £2m.”

The county has an ongoing shortage of primary school places, with pinchpoints in Oxford and Abingdon seeing hundreds of children failing to get a place at any of their preferred schools.