A LEADING councillor has urged parents to take part in a consultation over how school places are allocated.

Southend Council is looking at two proposals to change the catchment areas for Leigh schools.

The council says change is imperative to prevent popular schools becoming increasingly oversubscribed.

The plans include moving parts of the catchment areas for popular schools to cover undersubscribed schools.

This would see part of West Leigh catchment area moved to Leigh North Street, and some of that school’s area in turn moved to Darlinghurst.

A second option is to scrap catchment areas altogether - with priority entry given to children living within a certain circumference of the school building.

James Courtenay, councillor responsible for children and learning, said: “We have already had some submissions. We’ve got meetings booked across the town along with drop-in sessions. We’re urging people to attend these sessions and to put their views in writing.

“One of the plus sides of having meetings with smallish numbers of people is that we can have conversations about different ideas. It is not an easy thing because one change will have a knock-on impact elsewhere.”

Mr Courtenay added: “I’m really looking forward to the results of the consultation but I don’t want to make any judgements before everyone has had an opportunity comment on the consultation.”

The informal consultation is being carried out to decide on one of the options before it is put out to formal consultation between October and January next year.

The chosen option will be put in place in September 2018.

If the council does nothing, by September 2019, based on birth data alone, 63 children in total would be unable to get a place in Leigh schools.

To take part in the council’s ongoing public consultation, visit southend.gov.uk/schoolcatchmentresponse