A plan to transform a rugby club into a temporary school and alleviate severe strain on school places has been put on hold.

Thurrock council’s planning committee approved the plans last month with the aim of providing 120 new school places this September and another 120 in 2020.

It was seen as a temporary solution to the growing shortage of school places in the borough, which could reach more than 300 by September.

In planning documents, South West Essex Community Education Trust, which had put forward the plans branded the shortage “disastrous” and said the pupils at the temporary school could eventually transfer to Orsett Heath Academy, a new school due to open in 2023.

Steve Munday, chief executive officer of the trust, said: “To secure funding to open a school, the Department for Education must conduct assessment processes to confirm the feasibility of the school and provide an ‘approval to open’ decision.

“Without this decision, a school cannot be built. We were told that the ‘approval to open’ decision could be made by January 2019, meaning we could start construction on the temporary site immediately following a planning decision in January, ready for September.

“However, despite the heads of terms on the main site being agreed in October 2018 and planning permission being granted for the temporary building by Thurrock Council in January, delays have meant that the feasibility study will now not be completed for a few more months.

“This sadly means we cannot start building or recruiting staff for the interim site in time for it to open in September 2019.”

He added that the council has given assurances that they are working to ensure all children in the area are offered a suitable secondary school place for September.

When the council was asked for more information on these assurances they did not respond.

Planning documents for the temporary school highlight that school applications indicated that if every secondary school in the borough admitted their full pupil admission number for 2019, there would still be a minimum of 244 children with no offer of a school place in Thurrock.