The leader of Kent County Council proposed a land swap arrangement with Imperial College to try to keep alive ill-fated plans for a controversial science park somewhere in the county, it has emerged.

Cllr Paul Carter wrote to Imperial College rector Sir Richard Sykes after the demise of the plans for the Wye College site to outline a way in which he felt the project could continue.

The key suggestion is that both the council and the college should team up to find a way in which the Wye College buildings could somehow be converted into housing.

A confidential letter released under the Freedom of Information Act to campaigner Emma Chown details how just weeks after Imperial abandoned its plan in September 2006, Mr Carter wrote outlining how KCC could continue to push forward the idea.

In it, Cllr Carter says KCC would be “extremely interested in working with you to ensure the full potential is realised from this land in terms of development gain, while together attempting to identify an alternative site in the county for the proposals which would fulfil the immediate needs of the college.”

The letter states: “Without encroaching onto the countryside, the previously developed land on the existing Wye site has significant development value with a change of use to residential.”

Expressing his regret at the decision to scrap the contentious plans Imperial had for Wye, Cllr Carter ends by saying he hopes “we can salvage an alternative which may indeed offer even greater potential than the original proposals.”

Cllr Jack Woodford, Ashford councillor for Wye, said: “Instead of looking for ways to turn it into a residential development, KCC should be looking for ways to retain it as an educational facility. I know it might need a lot of up-grading but basically, there is a college there; that is what it is.”

Asked to comment on the letter, Kent County Council leader Paul Carter said: “In my view, Imperial College London was so totally fed up with the opposition to their ambitious plans to create a science and technology park in the county that they have now withdrawn altogether from Kent and are looking for other parties to lease their campus. They regard it as an enormously significant missed opportunity.”