A FRUSTRATED Poole dad is facing a ten-mile round school run despite the fact he lives just one mile away from two first schools.

Steve Gray, from Parkstone, has become "the latest victim of the schools' admissions lottery" after his daughter Isabelle was rejected from her catchment school, Court Hill, due to over-subscription.

The three-year-old was then denied a place at Lilliput First School on the grounds that she lives outside the catchment area, but has been told she can attend Turlin Moor Combined School, 4.7 miles from her home in Conifer Avenue.

Mr Gray said: "We're being treated unfairly. We live so close to two lovely schools and yet we've been left with an impossible choice.

"I've heard that the last person to get a place at Lilliput lives 1.1 miles from the gate. We were told our house is 1.05 miles away. Basically we live closer to the school than other people who are being accepted."

The catchment area for the school includes roads on the affluent Sandbanks peninsula up to 2.6 miles away.

Borough of Poole Council co-ordinates admissions for Lilliput, and maintains that "all admission authorities within Poole operate an equal preference admissions system", but cannot comment on individual cases.

All pupils who have been offered a place at Lilliput for this September live within the catchment area of the school.

The Gray family is appealing on the grounds that the school has made a measurement error, and Isabelle is currently ninth on the list for acceptance.

Jenny Paton, who was wrongly accused by Borough of Poole of lying on a school application form earlier this year, said: "Applying to schools is an extremely difficult process.

"If you don't get into your first choice, the school you're offered is not only not local, but frankly is not very good.

"Ideally schools in Poole should be better funded so they could all be at an equal level, then problems could be avoided".