PRESSURE on school places in a York suburb means 2015 will see the council come up with a plan to solve the problem.

City of York Council's cabinet member for education, Cllr Janet looker said that the popularity of South Bank means that both Knavesmire and Scarcroft primaries are under increased demand for places and work has been carried out at Knavesmire to build an extension to create provision, but more needs to be done.

Cllr Looker said: "We are going to have to think very creatively because we can see from the demographics that South Bank is a real pressure point.

"Knavesmire is full and the new homes at the old Terry's site haven't been built yet. We can't just go out and build a new school because the current Government's requirements mean that if you do that the school has to be either an academy or a free school at the moment.

"What we are trying to do is create a "York solution"so that we might look at partnerships within York to support an academy structure.

"There will be a lot of hard work in 2015 to try and put a shape to it all, even if we don't build a school."

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the city, Cllr Looker said that, as previously reported in The Press, work on new primary schools for Carr Infants in Acomb and Lord Deramore's in Heslington will go ahead in the new year.

She also said there will be the possible expansion of two of York's PFI (Private Finance Initiative) primary school's, St Barnabas CE in Leeman Road and St Oswald's CE in Fulford, to help cope with increased demand for pupil places in both those areas, subject to discussions with the PFI partner, Sewell.