Angry parents from the Island’s eastern end have hit out at Kent County Council after their children were refused places at a new school.

Both Sharon Evans and Liz Crawford have had their sons on the waiting list for Eastchurch primary since at least April.

The pair claim that despite being told they were high up the list, neither has gained a place at either the Warden Road school or the new £4.3m extension in Leysdown Road.

Sharon and Liz live in Condor Close, Warden Bay, and can see the school, which opened earlier this month, from their houses.

They have both gone through the appeal process to try to get a place.

The school is home to 210 pupils and KCC has said it would benefit children living in Leysdown and Warden Bay.

Sharon’s son Harry, who is four, has been offered places at Halfway and Minster but Sharon has kept him in nursery to see if a place becomes available.

The 43-year-old said: “It’s so frustrating – we have got a lovely new school and we didn’t even think in a million years we wouldn’t get in.

“We are quite a small community and I think people don’t appreciate that – when children go to nursery it’s with all their friends in the area and they want to go to school with those friends.

“I didn’t send him to Halfway or Minster because he would have been going miles away.

“Why didn’t they make extra places at the school?”

Liz, 39, said she is keeping her son Devan, five, at home because she refuses to send him “half way across the Island” and she would rather home tutor him.

She feels he was refused a place because she did not tick a box on the application form which said her preference was for a CofE school.

She said: “I’m disgusted that they have a new school at the end of the road and children from the local area are being refused places.”

A KCC spokesman said: “We sympathise in this difficult situation with both families concerned.

“Many schools are oversubscribed every year and parents are encouraged to consider the oversubscription criteria when making their application.

“Although the appeal panel heard the details of both families’ circumstances, it is obliged to make a decision based on the oversubscription criteria for that school.

“In both cases, the families did not specify details that would have given Eastchurch CofE Primary School the greatest weight when considering the criteria for oversubscription.

“Both children have been offered alternative schools on the Island and we welcome the opportunity to discuss options with the families.”