POLITICIANS have presented a petition to Downing Street calling on the Government to introduce fairer funding for Devon's schools.

The campaign's organiser Mel Stride, the prospective Tory candidate for Central Devon, and Angela Browning, the Tory MP for Tiverton and Honiton, handed in the petition to Number 10.

There were more than 700 signatures on the petition, which was launched by Mr Stride in the autumn.

Mr Stride and his team visited towns and villages and wrote to schools in central Devon.

He said: "In Devon we are quite unfairly much too far down the funding league table. This is despite the fact that our local schools have particularly high costs associated with rural travel, teacher recruitment and, in many cases, small school sizes.

"I am calling on the Government to urgently revisit the central government funding formula."

The current Government allocations of funding per pupil ranks Devon as 148th out of 151 education authorities in the country — with only Leicestershire, South Gloucestershire and Herefordshire more poorly funded.