Parents visited Downing Street on Friday morning to hand-deliver a petition calling for funding to build a new secondary school.

Petition organiser Catherine Greenwood, from Elm Road, Kingston, handed the document through the door of Number 10, with the support of other parents and their children who watched on.

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

The petition has more than 1,000 signatures, including those of MPs Zac Goldsmith and Edward Davey.

The petition was launched shortly after Kingston Council discovered it was not included in the 42 schools the government is prioritising for cash under the Priority School Building Programme (PSBP).

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 Thursday, 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.

For more information visit facebook.com/KingstonSecondaySchoolActionGroup.