London's boroughs need £740 million to guarantee every five year-old a school place over the next five years, London Councils warns today.

The warning comes as London Councils publishes research into the causes behind the extraordinary explosion in demand for primary school places in the capital.

Three quarters of London's boroughs are either having to provide unsatisfactory temporary classrooms or increasing class sizes to cope with demand, or acknowledge that a lack of capacity and insufficient funding for expansion means they will be facing problems within 2-3 years.

Based on current predictions, London faces reception place shortfalls of more than 18,300 in total by 2014.

The main reason behind the shortfall has been the large and unexpected growth in London's birth rate, which has grown by an extraordinary 20.5 per cent since 2001/02 - the national growth rate for the same period was 16.8 per cent.