A headteacher is excited about the prospect of opening a free school to meet the high demand for school places.

Andrew Wilcock, headteacher of Bishop Ramsey Church of England School in Ruislip, along with the school’s governing body and the London Diocesan Board for Schools, is putting together a bid to open a religious free school on the Heathfield School site in Pinner.

The girls’ school will merge with Northwood College in September, leaving the Pinner site vacant.

Mr Wilcock’s proposal to take over the vacant buildings will go before the Department for Education in May.

Mr Wilcock, who has been head of Bishop Ramsey since 2002, said: “Harrow currently has no Church of England secondary school and Bishop Ramsey is incredibly oversubscribed, so the free school would create an option for people who have not been successful.

“Fifty per cent of places would go to local families and 50 per cent would go to other people who have a commitment to a faith, not just Christianity.

“We will be bringing all that Bishop Ramsey stands for in terms of our ethos and high aspirations but it will be open to a much wider community,” he said.

There were 867 applications for just 180 spaces from prospective pupils whose parents included the Ruislip secondary school as one of their six choices for the new academic year, so Mr Wilcock looked east across the borough boundary when thinking about developing a sister school to meet the demand.

He said: “We have for a long time been aware of a lot of people who have wanted to but won’t be able to benefit from our education.

“We know that we are not the only group bidding to open a free school in Harrow so we might not be successful, but we think it’s an exciting idea and we feel we have got something to offer.”

A group will meet in the next couple of weeks to discuss various aspects of the bid, including a name for the school.

Harrow has no Anglican secondary school but does boast two Catholic secondaries – Salvatorian College for boys and The Sacred Heart Language College for girls, both in High Street, Wealdstone.

There is also the Roman Catholic St Dominic’s Sixth Form College in Mount Park Avenue, Harrow on the Hill, and Avanti House, an all-through free school which has a Hindu ethos and is split between Krishna Avanti Primary School in Camrose Avenue, Edgware, and Common Road, Stanmore.