By Hayley Robinson

An historic building is being demolished to make way for housing.

Demolition excavators provided by the Wooldridge Group, arrived at the old Sittingbourne paper mill site on Monday. Work to clear the land is expected to be completed by November.

The site, which measures 18.04 hectares, is now owned by London-based property consultants Essential Land after it paid £5.65 million to Finnish paper company M-Real for the land and its buildings in Milton Road.

It hopes to provide a combination of private and affordable housing to the west of the site and a number of retail and warehousing and/or industrial units to the east.

Michael Peters, a member of the Kent Historic Buildings Committee, said: "We have been awaiting the announcement from the new owners as to what they propose and we are now considering the matter.

"Nobody expects the functional industrial buildings of the mill to be preserved but I do hope they will at least keep the facade of the building that faces East and is clearly visible from the railway station.

"It is an important piece of Sittingbourne’s history. We must remember that at one time a third of the town’s population worked at the paper mill.

"If you take away the paper mills, the barge building and brick making there is not much left and unfortunately in the 20th Century and 21st Century the local authorities seem intent on obliterating everyone of those three industries.

"In the old days there were seven mills in the area so to obliterate this one means only a small part of the Periwinkle Mill in Milton Regis will remain which is a great shame."

A spokesman for Swale council said: "The Council has had preliminary informal discussions with the land owner about a mixed use development. It is normal for us to speak to landowners ahead of them submitting plans. There are no listed buildings at the site."