POOLE council has apologised after parents desperate to know if their child had got into their preferred school had only 90 minutes to find out.

Having been encouraged to apply online, irate parents who missed the Friday evening slot had to wait until after lunchtime on Saturday to log on to Borough of Poole’s website.

And while letters were posted on Friday containing the vital information, many were not received until the Monday.

One parent said: “I can envisage a lot of very unhappy parents, adding more stress to an already very stressful time.”

Borough of Poole has apologised for “essential” maintenance to the Civic Centre’s electrical systems, which meant the website was down from the evening of Friday, April 20 to early on the afternoon of Saturday, April 21.

“Every effort was made to ensure this disruption was kept to a minimum and parents who applied online for reception and middle school places for September 2012 were able to view the result of their applications from 4pm on Friday until the service went offline,” said a spokesman.

“However, we would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused to residents, especially those parents trying to access the online admissions service during the period of disruption.”

Parents were able to log on to the school admissions online service from 4pm on Friday, April 20 and around 30 per cent (615) did so. And although the site started to go off-line from 5.30pm it was still available around 7.30pm.

• Overall, the percentage of applications offered one of their three preferences for September 2012 was 93.5 per cent, slightly up on the 93 per cent last year.