Plans have been submitted for a memorial wall to commemorate Sheppey islanders who lost their lives in conflicts over the past 100 years.

It will contain 600 names and be an addition to the existing town centre remembrance site opposite Sheerness railway station.

Peter Macdonald is chairman of Sheppey War Memorial Trust, the group behind the £100,000 project.

He said the campaign began four years ago after Island war veteran Sydney Pepper told the Times Guardian a number of Sheppey people killed in battle had not been remembered.

Mr Macdonald said: “We hadn’t realised there were so many names missing.

“After about two years’ research, we found there were 600 Sheppey names which hadn’t been recognised – 205 from the First World War and the rest from the Second World War and conflicts since.”

Mr Macdonald said he visited war cemeteries across the UK and Europe and settled on a memorial based in Epsom as a prototype design for the new-look Sheppey monument.

If agreed, walls made of Portland stone material and engraved with the missing names will be added to the Grade II Sheerness site, which was built in 1922 and commemorates servicemen and civilians killed in the First World War.

A gradual slope will also be created at the foot of the memorial.

Mr Macdonald said the trust, which is hoping to gain registered charity status, has cash to put towards the new monument.

But he insisted the onus was on Swale council to stump up most of the money, saying it had a moral obligation as the lead local authority to fund it.

He said: “If the funding was in place, the memorial would take less than six months to complete.

“It would be a credit to the town and something of quality that will last for hundreds of years to come.

“It’s important to realise the huge numbers of people from Sheppey who lost their lives to give us the freedom we have now.”

Last year, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1914-18 conflict, Mr Macdonald helped plant 600 tiny wooden crosses at the Sheerness memorial to honour those not named on the monument.