COUNTY council education chiefs have backed plans to build a new £2.2m temporary primary school to tackle the shortage of places for pupils in Whiteley.

County councillor Roy Perry, Hampshire’s executive lead member for children’s services, yesterday approved proposals for a 210-space school on a site owned by the county council next to Lady Betty’s Drive and Leafy Lane.

Children will be taught in temporary classrooms, but will have a playground and a field.

In the longer term, the school will transfer to new permanent buildings in North Whiteley as part of a major new development.

The school will be run by the Church of England’s Winchester and Portsmouth Dioceses with building costs met by the county council.

Admission will not be faith-based.

Parents have long campaigned for extra places to cope with ever-increasing pupil numbers.

The existing three-form entry primary in Whiteley is over-subscribed and children denied places have had to travel miles out of the catchment area to schools south of the M27.