Winchester is to have the first county run “all-through” school for pupils aged four to 16 to meet rising numbers.

County education boss Roy Perry gave the go-ahead for the two-form entry primary school yesterday.

It will be built on the site of Rotherly boarding school which is next to The Westgate secondary school.

That means that pupils from the new school will automatically move on to the existing secondary school from Year 6.

Councillor Perry said: “It is an innovation and it may be the way education will develop in the future. I’m sure Westgate will make it work well.”

The Tory council chief also agreed the expansion of St Peter’s Catholic Primary in Oliver’s Battery and Winnall Primary as part of a £10m scheme to create hundreds of new places in the city.

And he asked officers to consider replacing two new temporary classrooms at All Saints CoE school in Highcliffe with permanent buildings.

The decision comes as the latest census figures reveal Winchester had the biggest population increase in Hampshire over the last ten years at 8.7 per cent.

In Winchester city, nearly one in five families missed out on their first choice primary school even with temporary classrooms creating extra spaces in September 2013.

The new primary school – the first to be built in the city for about 40 years – means all primary school catchment areas in the city will be redrawn.

The £7.75m Westgate primary school will open its doors to reception pupils only in September 2014 with other years added as they progress up the school. It will be seven years before it is a full-size primary school.

Rotherly boarding house is scheduled to close in August 2013. Rotherly nursery and pre-school will share the site with the new primary.

But Winchester and Chandler’s Ford MP Steve Brine said the new school would not “solve the problem indefinitely” and it was likely schools will have to expand.