A HEAD teacher has vowed to fight plans to sell off her school's farm for housing.

Lesley Ellis, who took over at Ashford's North School in Essella Road from previous head teacher Simon Murphy last month, described the farm, which has been running for more than 70 years, as the school’s legacy and its future.

At this year’s Kent County Show the school’s young farmers won the biggest prize-haul in their club’s history, bringing home 29 awards, including best display for their home-grown produce and best turnout, with 40 of their 70 members attending.

But it seems that even as they celebrated, plans were being drawn up by Kent County Council to sell the farm – with the 4.5 acres worth an estimated £3.5million.

According to KCC, an agreement was reached with Mr Murphy, who quit the school in July, to sell it as part of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) scheme at the school.

KCC spokesman Nadine Miller said: “Agreement was reached with the previous head teacher as part of the development of the PFI scheme at the school to release part of the site for development, the proceeds from the sale being shared between the school and the authority.

“The new head teacher has put forward an alternative scheme and has asked the authority to consider it.

“Arrangements are in hand for the cabinet member for education and school improvement to visit the school and discuss the new proposal. No decision will be taken until the visit.”

KCC refused to give further details about the PFI scheme, or to say exactly when the agreement to sell the farm had been made.

Lesley Ellis said: “I am totally against the sale of land at the North School. The decision to sell off the land was made before I was appointed as head teacher and also prior to Kent’s commitment to deliver quality vocational education across the county.

“We are ideally placed to deliver the new land-based diploma and have the full support of the other local schools, Hadlow College and South Kent College.

“My plan is to develop a vocational centre of excellence at the North School for land-based studies which will fully embrace the school farm.

“The education outside the classroom manifesto will be launched later this term by the Government which shows that resources, like the school farm, are an acknowledged asset to our school.

“The school farm is our legacy, our future and should be a utopia for all members of Ashford’s diverse community to enjoy in years to come.”

Mrs Ellis says as far as she is aware the agreement to sell off the school farm was not prompted by the need to meet Private Finance Initiative repayments.

She said part of the £3.5m to be raised by selling the land is earmarked for spending on computers provision at the school, and that she would be willing to forego this to keep the farm open.

She said: “There was talk about selling off the land about two years ago and I raised my concerns then. Mr Murphy informed the staff at that time, but to be absolutely honest we were never told that it was a firm agreement.

“As far as I’m aware this is nothing to do with the PFI agreement. The land that the farm is on is outside the PFI project.

“There was an agreement that the land sale would give some revenue to develop ICT infrastructure. We’ve got it in writing that £750,000 would come into the school for ICT provision. “I was not part of the decision-making process.”

Ashford MP Damian Green lent his support to the campaign to keep the North School farm open.

He said: “I support the head teacher on this. It’s been a great facility for pupils at the North Schools for years and I can see no reason letting it go.

“It’s good that Ashford keeps its links to the rural hinterland and this is a good way of doing it.”

The North School’s official logo says it is Ashford’s specialist school for rural matters. The school’s farm manager Nick Fysh said: “We need to bear in mind that the farm has been here well over 70 years and is an integral part of the school.”