GILLINGHAM Football Club's partnership with the Kent County FA and Medway council to develop Beechings Cross looks certain to be dissolved.

The club were looking to develop the site at Gillingham as a training ground and centre of excellence while the KCFA hoped to move there from offices in Maidstone Road, Chatham.

Though the KCFA and Gillingham chairman Paul Scally have been involved in well publicised differences of opinion - especially after he banned them from using Priestfield to stage the Senior Cup final - relations between the two started to thaw in recent months.

Mr Scally wined and dined members of the KCFA’s board of directors at Priestfield and met chief executive Keith Masters for talks at Priestfield earlier in the year. Following that meeting, Tony Stephens of Medway Council's Education and Leisure Department, addressed the KCFA board of directors in February.

Since then Mr Stephens has left Medway council and there have been no further developments.

Mr Masters explained: “Tony Stephens was Medway Council’s driving force in this matter but we gather he has left the council. We are disappointed that everything has come to a halt. It’s no secret that we are looking to relocate and we are now pursuing other alternatives.

“When I first arrived at the KCFA we employed two part-time assistants. Now we have eight full-time staff. The office is totally inadequate for our needs and we need to move. We plan to remain in the Medway-Maidstone corridor.”

Gillingham’s need of a training ground is as urgent as the KCFA’S need for a new office. Towards the end of the season they used a facility at the Garrison Ground.

But player-manager Andy Hessenthaler has made it known that the training ground issue is a matter of priority.