Following talks with the landowner Dysons Farm in south Oxfordshire has now been added to the four other potential homes for the much-needed primary to serve the children in north-west Caversham.

The shock move will delay the public consultation by at least three weeks following the EFA’s decision to include the new site just yards north of the Reading borough boundary, on Tokers Green Lane at the junction with Kidmore Road and Gravel Hill.

Councillor Jo Lovelock, leader of Reading Borough Council, said: “Why they have suddenly dropped this into the application when they have been looking at sites for the last 18 months I do not know.

"Frankly to delay the consultation at this stage when there is so much community concern about the school is beyond me. It is a secrecy thing again that really gets to me and I think it smacks of a desire to delay the decision until the summer so it does not get in the way of the General Election.”

This week a public consultation was due to be opened by Reading Borough Council to give residents the chance to voice their views on where the school should be built.

Though the council would have to give planning permission for any site within the borough the final decision will ultimately be made by the EFA.

If selected, any planning decisions on the Dysons Farm site would be referred to Oxfordshire County Council as it sits outside of Reading borough.

Originally the four sites being considered as a permanent home for the school were the council-owned Mapledurham Playing Fields, Albert Road Park and Bugs Bottom and a one-acre site on High Ridge, owned by the EFA.

Last September the school opened its doors to the first 62 pupils in a temporary site in Gosbrook Road while the EFA deliberated on a permanent home.