Kent County Council wants to build a primary school for up to 420 pupils, with a nursery, off Dumbrell Drive. Comments on the plans close on 16 November.
Kent County Council has applied for planning permission to build a new primary school and nursery in Paddock Wood, on land off Dumbrell Drive that has sat empty for almost ten years. Residents have until Monday 16 November to comment.
The application, reference KCC/TW/0153/2026, was advertised by the county council on 29 October. It is for a part one-storey, part two-storey school building with parking, play areas, sports pitches and a multi-use games area, built in two phases. (Kent County Council public notice, 29 October 2026)
The county council is aiming to open the school in September 2028. It would be the town’s second primary school.
What the plans include
The first phase would provide:
- places for 210 pupils, from Reception to Year 6, which is one class in each year
- a 14-place Specialist Resource Provision for children with special educational needs, including those who use wheelchairs, counted within the 210
- a 26-place nursery
- seven classrooms, a 150 square metre hall, a specialist room for art, science and food, a kitchen and a library
- grass sports pitches, a multi-use games area and playgrounds sized for a two-class-per-year school from the start
A second phase would add seven more classrooms and another 210 pupils, taking the school to two classes in each year. The nursery and the specialist provision would not grow. (Tunbridge Wells Borough Council delegated report, 4 November 2026)
The application form lists 53 parking spaces, three of them for disabled drivers, and 30 cycle spaces. The building would have 2,768 square metres of floorspace on a site of about 2.2 hectares. The only vehicle entrance would be from Dumbrell Drive.
Where it would go
The site is the open, scrubby land bounded by Dumbrell Drive, Bloxham Avenue, Mascall’s Court Road and Green Lane. It was set aside for a two-form-entry primary school in the borough’s 2016 site allocations plan, alongside the Mascall’s Court Farm housing that now surrounds it.
Planning permission for 375 homes and a school there was granted in March 2018. The homes were built, but the time limit for the school part of that permission ran out. That is why Kent has had to make a fresh application.
The borough council’s planning officer wrote that the site “has been left vacant for almost 10 years awaiting KCC Education having the necessary funds/local need to bring it forward”.
Why it took so long
A Church of England free school for Paddock Wood, proposed by the Tenax trust, was agreed in principle by the Department for Education around 2015. Kent’s own decision report explains what happened next.
Children did move into the new homes. But the birth rate in the older part of town fell, so the number of pre-school children did not rise enough to justify a new school. Kent asked the government to defer the opening every year, to protect small rural schools nearby. In 2022 the Department for Education dropped the school from its programme, and its funding went with it. (Kent County Council decision report 26/00025, May 2026)
That has now changed. Kent says the number of pre-school children in the Paddock Wood planning area rose by 43.9% between 2020 and 2025. It forecasts a shortfall of Reception places every year to 2034/35, peaking at 50 places in 2028/29, the year the school is due to open.
The report says Paddock Wood’s one existing primary school is on a compact site with little room to grow, and the small village schools around it cannot take the extra children. Without a new school, it says, the nearest spare places would be in Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells, about five miles away.
That matters more because Paddock Wood is growing again. Kent’s report counts 713 homes with permission on four sites in the town, 464 of them already lived in. The borough’s Local Plan adds about 2,450 more homes at Paddock Wood and east Capel, which are covered on our Tunbridge Wells planning news page.
Who would run it and what it costs
By law, every new school in England has to open as a free school run by an academy trust. Kent has run a competition for trusts. Its May timetable had the proposals going to the Secretary of State this month, and a trust being appointed in January 2027.
Kent’s Cabinet Member for Education and Skills, Beverley Fordham, approved £1,409,507 for design work on 29 May. The report put the whole project at about £12.11 million, including about £10.7 million to build it, and warned that the figure was an early estimate. Only about £37,000 is expected to come from developers. The rest would come from Kent’s school-places budget. (Kent County Council record of decision 26/00025)
What the borough council said
Kent will decide the application itself, but it asked Tunbridge Wells Borough Council for its view. On 4 November the borough council raised no objection, with two requests.
- The 2.4-metre black mesh fence along Dumbrell Drive and Bloxham Avenue should be set further back, with more and larger hedge planting, to soften it for neighbours.
- The second phase should add another multi-use games area, because the extension would be built on playground space just as 210 more children arrive. Without it, the officer wrote, play space “would be limited especially during the winter months”.
Kent Police’s designing-out-crime officers also commented, recommending locked, access-controlled gates and CCTV on the entrances.
What it means for you
If you live near Dumbrell Drive, Bloxham Avenue or Mascall’s Court Road, this is the time to say what you think about the fencing, the parking and the school-run traffic. Kent’s own highways team will assess the traffic, so comments on the road layout go to Kent, not the borough council.
To comment by 16 November:
- online through Kent County Council’s planning applications site, searching for KCC/TW/0153/2026
- by email to planning.applications@kent.gov.uk, quoting KCC/TW/0153/2026
- by post to Planning Applications Group, Kent County Council, County Hall, Maidstone ME14 1XQ
If your child is due to start school in September 2028, they could be in the first Reception class, if the school opens on time. Our Kent school term dates page has this year’s dates.
Have your say