New figures reveal that living over a minute away from your local school could leave you outside the catchment area and significantly lower your chances of getting your child a place.

With 8.2 applications for every one place last year, Fox Primary, in Kensington, was one of many local schools forced to dramatically reduce the size of its catchment area. The last child accepted to the school lived just 0.06 miles away.

Attempts are being made to address the problem with the government having already invested approximately £2bn into the capital's education system over the past four years.

A spokesman for the Department of Education said that "this month we approved a further two new London free schools and have already opened 17 more this term".

But is this enough?

Recent research has shown that an extra 73,000 London children will need a secondary school place over the next five years. These figures translate into an estimated shortfall of 35,000 secondary school places – the equivalent of one large secondary school per borough.

For schools such as John Betts Primary, in Hammersmith, and Thomas Jones Primary, in Kensington, the answer to increasing pressure for places has been to decrease the size of their catchment areas with pupils needing to live less than a two-minute walk away at 0.09 and 0.10 miles respectively.

However, not all schools base their entrance criteria on distance. Many faith schools assess applications based on a child's religion, while others offer places to siblings of current students first.

See west London's most over-subscribed schools here.

Find out how your nearest secondary school rates by seeing our school ratings page here.