A mass school building programme is needed to cope with Bradford’s shortage of primary places, Council chiefs have admitted.

It came after the Labour Party called for 24 new primary schools in the district to ease the growing admissions crisis.

Shadow Education Secretary Stephen Twigg said today’s budget needed to address the “urgent shortage” of primary places.

But the Government hit back, accusing Labour of “hypocrisy” because it had failed to address the problem when it was leading the country.

Rising birth rates and immigration are leading to a record demand for the spaces available.

An extra 5,462 primary places need to be found by 2015/16, according to Department for Education forecasts.

Council bosses insisted they were doing everything in their power to create more spaces.

A total of 54 out of 155 primary schools across the district are over their limit, compared to one in five across the country.

Although there are also large numbers of unfilled places in the district, this can largely be explained by geographical disparities as well as the fact that the vacancies are for a different age group to the children needing places. Labour said the shortfall in Bradford equated to 24 new schools before 2015/16 and accused the Government of focusing on its “pet project”, free schools.

Mr Twigg said: “The Government needs to address this head-on in the budget, allocating all its education capital to meeting real need, not salami slicing some off for pet projects.”

Councillor Ralph Berry, Bradford’s executive member for children and young people, said: “We have got six per cent annual growth and are under real pressure as the most rapidly-growing city in England. It is a real challenge to find the space to get schools expanded. We are going to have to start building new schools.”

But Education Secretary Michael Gove accused Labour of “breathtaking hypocrisy”, saying: “For years they ignored warnings about the baby boom and splurged billions on extravagant and expensive secondary school projects instead. When we said there was a problem, they dismissed our calls as ‘nonsense’.

“By contrast, we have more than doubled funding for extra places to give local authorities the resources they need.”