Work has begun on building the new, eight-lane floodlit athletics track at Sutton Valence School.

Scheduled to open this summer at a cost of almost £800,000, the track is jointly funded by the school and Maidstone council.

It will be an official training centre for the 2012 London Olympics.

Sutton Valence School headmaster Joe Davies, the Maidstone council cabinet member for leisure Cllr Brian Moss (Con), and Medway and Maidstone Athletics Club chairman Paul Alcock visited the site as bulldozers and a JCB began preparing the foundations.

Mr Alcock said: “The track will be one of the finest in the region and a facility we’ve been looking forward to for 25 years.”

His club members will train there five days a week.