BUILDINGS on the former site of Kenton School are to be sold off.

Members of Devon County Council’s land and property committee have agreed to the proposed sale on the open market.

The original 600-year-old school building is owned by a trust which is looking at options for its future.

But the rest of the land belongs to Devon County Council which no longer has a use for it since the school moved onto a new site.

The Church House, as it was known, dates from around the 1550s and is said to be one of the oldest school buildings in Devon.

It was originally used as a Poorhouse to the Parish, but in 1818 it was recorded that two rooms were let out as a ‘National School’ with about 100 pupils.

The school was re-furbished to house 4 classrooms, a hall and a library.

But the small village school in Mamhead Road suffered catastrophic flooding in 2023.

The children were taught in three temporary locations for some time until it was decided the site was no longer suitable for use as a school.

Now the school is based in temporary classrooms on a site at East Town Lane until a replacement school is built.

The school trust has been working in collaboration with the Department for Education and the school has been accepted in the School Rebuilding Programme for a replacement and funding has been approved.

Now, Devon County Council is to sell off the part of the original school site it owns.

The proposal to councillors was for the former school ‘be declared surplus and disposed of on the open market subject to being released by the current academy holding the site and the Department for Education’.

A report to committee members said the school has been relocated to a new site which will become the permanent school site.

The report said: ‘The part of the former site which contains the significant majority of the school buildings has already been declared surplus by the Department for Education.

‘The trustees of this site are progressing options for the future of this part of the site.

'The remaining part of this site is owned by Devon County Council, but it is entirely land locked with no road access.

‘The council land has not yet been released by the Department for Education and a pre-requisite of this will be that this site is released by the current academy responsible for it and also by the council.

‘It is understood that that the trustees of the main part of the site are agreeable to providing a pedestrian access to the council land.

‘Education colleagues have confirmed that the council land is not needed for education and the site has been referred to members of the Strategic Property Forum who have not identified any other council use for it.’

The land is one of a number of sites Devon Council Council wants to sell off in a bid to raise cash for the council.