By Hayley Robinson

Despite Kent County Council winning a High Court appeal, head teachers in Sittingbourne are not pinning their hopes on building work being done.

All five secondary schools were among the schools in Kent affected by the government’s decision to scrap the schools’ rebuilding scheme.

The work would have allowed Fulston Manor, The Westlands, Sittingbourne Community College and Highsted Grammar to carry out work aimed at increasing their capacity as the demand for places is outstripping the number of places available.

In a High Court ruling last week, judge Justice Holman said Kent County Council and five other councils must be given another chance to persuade the government that it should fund school rebuilding projects that were axed last year.

However, he did warn the government could still could reject fresh pleas and said "No one should gain false hope from this decision."

Fulston head teacher Alan Brookes said: "I’m on the high side of sceptical that it will unlock the money. It doesn’t change anything, we are still heading into over-crowding across Swale.

"We will wait and see what happens but we’re not rushing out to buy any hard hats."

Westlands’ head teacher Jon Whitcombe agreed, saying: "I will not take solace and comfort from it until I see hard money and clear evidence of investment happening in our Sittingbourne schools.

"We’ve had so many false starts in terms of improving our provisions so until there’s a hard commitment to improving our resources we are going to continue to do what we are doing with what we have available."

Borden head teacher Harold Vafeas thinks it is unlikely the decision will be reversed. He said: "I am not getting too excited yet. I hope some valuable capital funding may come out of this."

At SCC, head teacher Alan Barham said he did not expect the original plans to be resurrected and Highsted head teacher Jennifer Payne added: "We shall watch with interest to see the developments over the coming months and look forward to clear direction for our own projects."