Increased free childcare, more school places and improved primary school kitchen and dining facilities have been announced by Cornwall Council.

The council has been allocated more than £6m by the Government to provide free childcare for two years olds, along with a further £32m of funding which will help to create hundreds of additional school places across Cornwall.

It will also receive nearly £850,000 to expand kitchen and dining facilities in primary schools as part of the Government's initiative to provide free schools meals for all infants from September 2014.

The council said this week that while all three- and four-year-olds in England are currently entitled to 15 hours of free early education each week for 38 weeks of the year, the Government is extending support to 40 per cent of all eligible two-year-olds.

All councils have been asked to provide the additional places by September 2014 – however, Cornwall will be implementing this early from January 2014.

Cornwall is currently funding more than 1,200 eligible two-year-olds and in 2014/15 this will increase to more than 2,300 children.

As part of the national Basic Need Capital allocations for 2015-17, Cornwall will receive £32,299m to provide new school places between 2015 and 2017 – the highest level of funding which has been awarded to the authority in recent years.

Andrew Wallis, the Council's Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, said areas such as Newquay, St Austell and surrounding areas, Truro, Launceston, Camborne, Bodmin and schools in West Cornwall were already under severe pressure to provide school places, together with forecasts of rising school numbers in other areas.

'This funding will enable us to address these pressures by building new schools and providing additional classrooms,' he said.

The council will now begin to formulate its plans for expansion of some schools and consider the potential creation of new schools where evidence indicates they are needed most. It will be working with schools and their partners to identify how these places can be created.

It will also carry out a survey of the county's 236 primary schools in January to identify where expansion or new kitchens may need to be provided to cope with the anticipated increase in numbers of children requiring a school lunch. The council has been allocated almost £850,000 towards the project.

At present, at one fifth of primary schools meals are brought in from another school or kitchen.