A county councillor is calling for all asbestos to be removed from all public-owned buildings in Kent.

Cllr Trevor Bond slammed council officers for not having a long-term plan to eradicate the silent killer from inside schools and council properties.

Council officers say attempting to remove the poison would do "more harm than good" as asbestos is "harmless" until it is disturbed.

The fibrous rock was used for insulation in buildings until the turn of the century as it protects against the spread of fires and corrosion.

Asbestos poses no health risk unless it is disturbed and its fibres are inhaled.

There have been cases where construction workers have developed serious lung-related illnesses – including cancer – after breathing in the toxic fumes.

Cllr Bond claims the potential for life-threatening illnesses is cause for the material to be removed from all buildings.

At the policy cabinet committee meeting, he said: “I am disappointed there is no proactive, long term strategy to at least get it out of all buildings.

“We should be saying that in the next five years we want to clear it.

“Even in areas where there may have some asbestos but it is deemed safe.

"The difficulty we have is we have to balance practicalities of removing some of the asbestos with the potential danger"- Rebecca Spore

“At the end of the day, if we go back several years, asbestos would have been considered safe in total but we know now it isn’t.”

However, the director of infrastructure, Rebecca Spore, said the council has a three-year plan to assess each at-risk building.

She said: “The difficulty we have is we have to balance practicalities of removing some of the asbestos with the potential danger.

“In some instances it is relatively easy but in other instances it is embedded in the structural fabric of the building and it can be very difficult to remove and very costly.”

The cost of risk assessments at public building is more than £400,000 – with £320,000 spent at schools.

Mrs Spore added: “This needs to be balanced with the amount of resources KCC has as a whole and to date, we have a very constrained modernisation plan that doesn’t allow us to go that far.

“Even if we could, we might do more harm than good.”

She added the level of asbestos is also measure in properties the council acquires or sells.