Traffic concerns have been echoed by one of Deal’s county councillors just as a consultation ended into expanding Deal Parochial Primary School.

The public's chance to comment finished on Friday and Cllr Mike Eddy (Lab) says he has no fundamental objections to the increase in size of the school to a two-form entry because that was “always the intention”.

But if it goes ahead, he feels “a strong campaign to put pressure on KCC is needed” to make sure accidents do not happen at what he deems an already “problematic” junction.

He said: “I share the concerns about the issue of traffic.

“It’s a bad junction with the railway bridge and the sight lines are already poor.

“That is something that they are going to need to address at the planning stages.

“They need to look at the access to and from the school and should be thinking in terms of how they’re going to improve traffic flow.

“The last thing anyone wants is for a child to be involved in an accident at that junction and if the number of children increases, so does the risk.”

"It is not a sensible way to organise traffic" - Cllr Mike Eddy

Kent County Council plans to increase the intake of pupils at the primary school from 210 to 420.

The authority says the expansion would take place gradually over seven years, with 60 reception places being offered from 2018.

Cllr Eddy said he was also concerned about where the children are going to come from.

He said: “At the moment the area where development is taking place is Sholden.

“Families there will be looking to send their children to Sholden or Warden House Primary, not to go into Deal and then go back out again towards places of work such as Discovery Park.

“I’ve pointed out that it is not a sensible way to organise traffic.”

He said children coming from the new Station Road development will be looking to go to The Downs or Kingsdown Primary.

He added: “There is some logic in that expansion elsewhere is needed to help with the actual numbers of parents and kids and reduce the amount of actual traffic in the town.”

The proposal came as pressure mounts on the local authority to provide more school spaces for KCC’s projected figure of 200,000 people moving to Kent each year.

A report after the consultation will be sent to KCC’s education and young people’s cabinet committee on Thursday, March 30, and the committee will then consider whether to go ahead with issuing a public notice in April.