A powerful schools committee has been criticised for side-stepping controversy over two grammar schools’ plans to withdraw guaranteed places for Sutton students.

The Sutton Admissions Forum dismissed a motion to postpone 2010 selection proposals for Nonsuch High School for Girls and Wallington High School for Girls’ which would give a greater emphasis to students living outside the borough.

Members of the forum, including governors, headteachers and elected representatives, preferred instead to “recognise the dilemma of the unwieldy admission arrangements” and the “complexity of the issues involved”.

Recommendations made by the advisory body are not legally binding, but would carry significant weight with the schools adjudicator whose decision is final.

Foresters Primary School parent governor Gary Kirkwood said the result was “disappointing” given the impact the decision could have on Sutton schoolchildren.

He said: “The phrase I would use is lip service. They have followed the statutory process and done what they are legally obliged to do, but not morally.”

Lib Dem MP Paul Burstow said: “Council leader Sean Brennan has written to both schools asking them to reconsider their plans. He wrote: ‘Given the pressure of places that Sutton parents already face ... I would wish to see an increase in the number of places that are available to local parents, rather than a decrease’.’’ Tweeddale Primary School governor Andrew Theobald, a former Sutton Labour councillor, said the plans would also disadvantage socially and economically deprived students in St Helier ward, who would not be able to compete with outside students whose parents are able to pay for extra tuition.

The public meeting was not advertised despite the massive interest in the subject.

Parent-of-two Zainab Khan, of Cheam, said the meeting would have been “packed out’’ with those eager to hear the debate and democracy in action, if they had known it was taking place.

Conservative opposition leader Paul Scully said the lack of communication was “symptomatic of a general malaise this council has towards its constituents’’.

But forum chairman, Councillor Tony Brett Young said it was “not a formal meeting’’ and was held three times a year and scheduled two months in advance. He said: “I’m sorry that there were parents who didn’t get to the debate.

“We are not trying to hide and not trying to discourage anyone from coming.’’ Wallington Girls governor Alison Myerscough said the plans would still allow places for “local children as we see them’’.

She said: “We are very close to the boundary of the London Borough of Sutton so our locality includes a large area.

“We don’t anticipate that it [the plans] will have a significant difference on current demographics with a local area within the distance of the school not reflecting the local borough of Sutton.’’