A Whitstable campaign group wants to buy the town’s former Royal Mail sorting office to prevent developers using it for more housing – but it will need to raise £1 million to do it.

Transition Town Whitstable (TTW) hopes the site in Cromwell Road, which closed in May 2013, can become a community asset and has sent a proposal to Canterbury City Council detailing the need to keep it open for public use, rather than private development.

If the asset proposal is registered under the Community Right to Bid legislation in the new Localism Act, the group will then have six months to find the funds to buy the site as the sale of the office will be frozen.

The group has already raised around £20,000, but will then need an additional £300,000 to develop the office on top of the £1m needed to buy it.

Becky Richards of TTW believes eight or nine houses and six flats will be built on the site if the private development went ahead.

She said: “We’re absolutely sick of a few people making a lot of money from property in Whitstable. We really want to keep our strong community here and we want to buy this building.

“It’s really important because Whitstable doesn’t have many places for community use, the ones that we do have are really pressed for space.”

Last Friday, with only one hour’s notice, around 30 local residents viewed the former Royal Mail site to see what the site could be used for.

“It’s been a public building up until now and can be in the future, so it shouldn’t be turned into private houses,” Mrs Richards added.

"It’s been a public building up until now and can be in the future, so it shouldn’t be turned into private houses..." - Becky Richards

“Property prices are high because it’s such a good community but if we don’t have any community resources we won’t have a good community anymore – it will just be a commuter town.

“As soon as we have it we’ll be able to rent out spaces, generating income, and it will start paying for itself. It’s going to be a challenge (to find the funds) but we’ll look for grants.

“About 20 people in the town have pledged a thousand pounds; I don’t know what the population of Whitstable is, but if everybody put in just half of that we’d be able to buy and own it as a town.”

Royal Mail spokesperson Sally Hopkins said: “Royal Mail has been marketing its former Whitstable delivery office site since October 2014.

“We have had strong interest in the site and we are currently in talks with one particular party. We are also aware of local community interest in the site.”

Canterbury City Council will now consider the proposal to register the building as a community asset in the coming weeks.