A Tory education minister has said Sutton Council must perform a u-turn after it abandoned Rosehill park as a secondary school site, as a places crisis looms.

East Surrey MP Sam Gyimah, minister for childcare and education, said he was "seriously disappointed" the Rosehill site was shunned earlier this year.

Mr Gyimah also blasted the proposed Belmont hospital site as "unsuitable" in its current state at a meeting discussing the borough’s school place crisis at Westminster Hall.

He said: "The Department for Education had meetings with officers from Sutton Council about the Rosehill all-weather pitch site and we were told that the council would agree for the land to be transferred to the department for the school.

"I am seriously disappointed that the council has since changed its mind about this site and removed it from its options.

"Belmont could accommodate a smaller secondary school helping to meet the need for places from 2018 onwards. However, in its current form it is unsuitable for the Sutton free school.

"I urge the council in the strongest terms to reconsider its plans to meet its need for secondary school places.

"The ideal solution would be to take plans for both sites on have the second school on the Belmont hospital site."

Sutton and Cheam MP Paul Scully said the borough attracted pupils from central London and the south coast as well as neighbouring boroughs and that it needed more school places to cope with demand.

He said the council needed to find a place before children were left without a school to go to in north and central Sutton where demand is greatest.

He said: "Many of the plots of land that might have been made for a good school site were snapped up for residential, retail and other mixed developments.

"Now we're scratching around to find sites that can deliver the infrastructure improvements to support an expanding population.

"Senior Liberal Democrat councillors dismiss the site as it is on Metropolitan open land, but this environmental argument is inconsistent for a number of reasons.

"The council was happy to build an incinerator on Metropolitan open land in another part of the borough. They are also planning a primary school in Hackbridge.

"I do not believe that the parents of nine-year-old children are aware of the totally avoidable crisis that we're facing as a direct result of their locally elected representatives."