Campaigners fear a “beautiful” wildlife haven could be destroyed to make way for a new “all-through” school as part of plans for new homes on a barracks site.

Maidstone council’s local plan review seeks to allocate space for more than 19,000 homes by 2039 and includes the redevelopment of the Invicta Park Barracks site to meet that goal.

The Army says it will quit the site by 2029 and the council has pencilled it in for 1300 new homes.

But David Spencer, the planning inspector who signed off on Maidstone’s plans, insists the site will also need to provide a new secondary school.

Kent County Council has already voiced objections to the plot allocated for the school in the plan.

It says its undulating nature and irregular shape “would not be conducive” to a new school and that it would require “the felling of a significantly sized area of mature woodland”.

Its objection has also now been echoed by an environmental campaigner.

Cllr Tony Harwood (Lib Dem) said the site pegged for the school is right in the centre of a “sylvan wood” that once formed part of the Lushington Estate, the county home for more than 100 years of the aristocratic Lushington family.

Known as Quarry Wood, the woodland “contains hundreds of veteran trees and significant areas of ‘high forest’ woodland - a remarkable survival within its urban context,” he said.

He has made a formal request to Maidstone council to carry out a TEMPO assessment (Tree Evaluation Method for Preservation Orders) on the site, which he hopes would lead to preservation orders issued for the woodland.

His campaign is backed by the inspector’s comments, who declared that special care would be needed to preserve important landscapes within the barracks and to protect the Lushington’s former home, the Grade II* listed Park House.

Cllr Harwood added: “I have a detailed knowledge of and a great feeling for Quarry Wood – and the wider Invicta Park estate and the resident wildlife – which stems from my 1970’s childhood.

“A number of my school friends came from army families and I spent many hours as a child exploring the mysterious and historic woodland and parkland within the barracks.

“The material in the Local Plan Review lays bare the extent of the threat to trees and wildlife.

“Essentially, as KCC states, for the proposed school site to come forward, the entirety of the beautiful wildlife haven at Quarry Wood would need to be destroyed.”

Much of the Invicta Park site is now classified as wood pasture and parkland, which under the Environment Act places a duty on local authorities to take action to conserve and enhance biodiversity.