There are calls to reconsider plans to sell off a primary school for housing when it closes and instead use it for community facilities.

Halfway Houses will move to the former Danley Middle School site next year. The future of its site in Southdown Road, Halfway, is yet to be decided.

A notice went up outside the school on January 23 from Kent County Council (KCC) about the possibility of lifting a Section 77 order protecting the playing fields at the site from future development.

Halfway Residents’ Association has written to the authority saying the area has benefitted little from any development in recent years yet it has suffered indirectly from others, such as extra strain on the Halfway Road traffic lights from the Thistle Hill development.

The group argues an additional 60 homes earmarked for the site, in addition to 619 allocated in Swale council’s Local Plan and hundreds more planned at the Old Dairy and Power Station Road would worsen existing infrastructure problems.

Vice chairman Mick Galvin said he would like to see the old school building kept as a community centre or for medical, GP and dental amenities lacking in the area.

He said: “Halfway needs a community hub, or something like Queenborough has with Castle Connections.”

Swale council’s cabinet member for localism, Cllr Mike Whiting (Con), has written to KCC to demand it scraps plans to demolish the school for housing and implore decision makers to meet residents to discuss the matter.

He said: “The primary school site in Queenborough Road is central to the Halfway community, it sits on a number of bus routes and, in my mind, is the perfect location for a much-needed community hub.

“I fully understand the financial pressures that local authorities are having to deal with, but I urge KCC to consider very carefully the opportunities offered by this site to make a better community in Halfway before selling it off to the highest bidder and losing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

A KCC spokesman said: “We are still reviewing options on how best to proceed with the land and no decisions have been made. No planning application has been submitted to Swale council.

“Whatever proposal is made for the site, those plans would be put to public consultation via the usual planning process and ultimately would be decided by Swale council.”