(EHCP) LA consulting with school.

Hey everyone, hope you are well. I’m looking for a bit of advice from anyone that has experiences with EHCP’s and special schools. My daughter who is 2 years and 8 months has an EHCP she has Global developmental delay, autism requiring very substantial support, expressive and receptive language difficulties. I have identified a specialist nursery within a special school that could meet my daughter’s needs and have listed that as my parental preference. The council are acknowledging it’s the only nursery/school that can meet her needs within the area and have identified two potential other nurseries but they are 45 mins away and not in our area. The LA have consulted with the prefered school in my area and the school have came back and said that they are full and also that they can’t meet her needs due to “the intake of children being slightly different this year and the majority of children in the class is physically disabled so they think the peer group is wrong for her”. I completely disagree with this. Although yes the school does have a lot of physically disabled children there there are also a lot of children with just an autism diagnosis and no physical disabilities just that they are requiring significant support which is the same as my daughter. 

is this legal for the school to say that they can’t meet her needs just because they think the peer group is wrong for her? Also can the council force the school to accept her? 

Any response or advice would be really appreciated. 

thank you