Sport England objections to the redevelopment of an old school have been called “ridiculous” by councillors, but the Secretary of State will now have the final say over the 139 homes.

Plans to demolish the former St John Fisher Catholic Comprehensive School in Ordnance Street, Chatham, and build homes there will now need a decision from Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner.

Medway Council’s planning committee voted to approve plans from Eutopia Homes (Kent) Ltd to knock down the remaining school buildings and replace them with 32 one-bedroom homes, 50 with two bedrooms, 37 with three bedrooms, and 20 with four.

The proposals also include an open public space with a play park, a planted woodland, and 76 parking spaces.

The layout consists of two blocks of flats alongside terraced townhouses.

St John Fisher School shut in 2022 and it has remained vacant since. The original buildings were constructed in the 1960s and some extensions added in the 1980s.

Pupils moved to the new school site in City Way and Eutopia Homes put in an application to build on the Ordnance Street plot in May

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Since 2023, the old school buildings have suffered several fires - one in October 2023, another in June this year, and two more in August

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The application received a letter of objection from Sport England on the grounds the development will mean the loss of the playing field on the site.

Councillors criticised this, as the playing field is currently inaccessible to the public as the area is closed off.

However, Sport England said if the authority did approve the application it would need to be referred to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Angela Rayner.

Cllr David Field (Lab) said he liked the designs, particularly some of the homes being in a terraced street style, and called the objection from Sport England “a tad ridiculous”.

He said: “Considering the fact that the new school provides a new sports facility and that this is not an accessible sports area, this is not somewhere people use for sports teams.

“It’s essentially under lock and key - it’s a tad ridiculous. I just feel sorry for the poor person from Sport England who had to write the objection as part of policy.”

Cllr Adrian Gulvin (Con) agreed the objection wasn’t right.

He said: “It’s absolutely ridiculous. Any organisation with “England” as a suffix seems to be full of jobsworths. This government would do well to take a scythe to these quangos.

“We’ve got a good scheme here, it’s going to be a real boost for the regeneration of Medway and provide a wide range of homes.”

Cllr Michael Pearce (IndGr) raised a concern over the changing from an educational location to a residential one, saying the need might arise for a new school in the area in the future.

He said: “Considering we have been told we need to build 30,000 houses by 2040, this is an urban location where space is scarce, especially for community facilities.

“I assume it has been deemed we don’t need this space for education at the moment, but we might need it in the future.

“I don’t want a repeat of what happened in Strood where schools were demolished, built on, and then we worked out later we needed sites for schools.”

Ultimately, councillors decided to approve the application with 13 votes for and one against and so it awaits approval from the Secretary of State before it can progress.