UNION representatives have welcomed plans to create more school places.

Lancashire and Blackburn NUT representative Simon Jones spoke following a £2.35billion government funding anouncement.

He said: “Any additional funding to address the schools places crisis is welcome but this is a situation of the government’s own making. Population changes are not a new phenomenon and local authorities, who are responsible for providing sufficient school places, have traditionally been able to plan to meet rising and falling demand.

“The significant factor in the current situation is that, since 2010, the government has removed and undermined local authorities’ legal powers to deliver new school places.

“This is because any new school opened by a local authority must now be an academy or free school.

“This creates an irrational competitive marketplace for school places rather than the rational planned provision that local authorities were able to guarantee in the past.”