Desperate parents are preparing to visit Downing Street to deliver a petition calling on the Education Secretary to stump up the money for a new Kingston secondary school.

The group hope Michael Gove and the Government will reconsider the decision not to fund the non-selective, co-educational, eight-form entry, community school which was meant to open in the north of the borough by 2015.

So far 1,033 have signed the petition, which launched shortly after Kingston Council discovered they were not included in the 42 schools the government is prioritising for cash under the Priority School Building Programme.

Petition organiser Catherine Greenwood, from Elm Road, Kingston, said a further hundred signatures are still to come and they will continue to run the paper petition until the visit next Friday.

The 42-year-old mother of two said the situation is a huge concern for parents in the borough who already have to put up with having their children educated in bulge classes and temporary classrooms.

The council had been relying on the money to finance the school, which is due to open on the North Kingston centre site in September 2015 to help address the shortage of school places in the borough.

The announcement, on May 25, had been delayed several times and leaves the already stretched local authority to find an alternative way of raising the £30m for the new school.

It is expected that works will need to start in September 2013 for the school to open on time.