Sutton Council has announced it will not support the building of a new secondary school in Rosehill Park, after its own preferred site for the project was rejected.

In June the Education Funding Agency (EFA) chose the park's all-weather pitches as its preferred site for the new free school to be run by Greenshaw Learning Trust, flying in the face of council plans to develop the Sutton Hospital site.

The council bought the land in Belmont for £8m in March, in the hope of creating a new Sutton Life Science Cluster made up of a new school and the nearby Royal Marden hospital.

Conservative MP for Sutton and Cheam, Paul Scully, used his first speech in the House of Commons to give his support to the Rosehill Park option, and has argued that the Sutton Hospital site is too small to serve the borough's future education needs.

Today Sutton Council leader Councillor Ruth Dombey announced the authority would not be supporting the EFA and Greenshaw Learning Trust in building the new school, defending the choice as a "common sense decision to protect our green spaces as much as possible".

She said: "The potential to connect a secondary school to what could be the second largest life science cluster in the world is a once in a lifetime opportunity that would create a ladder of opportunity for our young people.

"Even if the Hub did not go ahead, we would still be using a brownfield site instead of a green space which has to be the preference for Sutton. We are a green council and we are working to make the borough a more attractive and more sustainable place."

It is predicted that a new secondary school in Sutton will be needed by 2017/18 to cater for rising pupil numbers.