An ambitious scheme to raise £1million to save the derelict Victorian water tower in Sheerness has drawn flack from a councillor.

Revive The Water Tower launched a Just Giving page last month and is hoping to raise money by selling bricks and windows to fund a full restoration. But this week the fund stood at just £2.

Swale councillor Lee McCall cast doubt on the idea. In a Facebook post, he wrote: "This page has been reported to the council which is seeking legal advice. Advice has also been sought from Kent Police.

"This building is privately owned. The owner has planning permission granted which still has time to run. You are selling bricks and windows to a property you do not own."

But the organisers hit back. They insisted: "We are happy to have discussions with the council and police. The current owner is, and has been, seeking to sell the property for months. The planning permission has since lapsed.

"We are not selling anything we do not own. We are seeking investors from the community to purchase and renovate a property for the community which is currently a hazard."

They say £25 from each of the Island's 40,000 residents would raise £1m.

The fund was launched after a boy narrowly avoided being seriously hurt when he crashed through a rotten third-storey floor inside the dangerously dilapidated building last month. In the past, fires have also also been started by youths. There are piles of poisonous pigeon faeces covering the ground.

After the latest injury, Matthew Brown, chairman of Sheerness Town Council, wrote on rival Save The Sheerness Water Tower page: "In light of renewed interest, it may be time to focus on the future of the building and the site. This is a prominent landmark in a prime position."

Cathrine Bennett, one of the three people behind the Revive the Water Tower project, told him: "We are looking to do just that. Weʼre raising £1,000,000 to revive the tower. It's time the people took charge. Sheerness water tower is part of Island history and deserves to be saved.

"We don't want to see it turned into a block of ugly flats. We want it to be owned by the Island for use by the community. Our plan is to include everyone who believes in the importance of the tower and to create space for functions, shops, play areas, a museum, the arts, offices and living."

She added: "As an investor, you will be part of the team which makes the decisions, owns a part of the building and eventually earns from your investment. £100 buys a brick with your name on and £1,500 buys a window."

Cllr Brown said it would "almost certainly" need "much more" than a million.

Swale council applied for a £1.7m grant in 2013 to save the water tower and the fire-damaged Sheerness Dockyard Church but was turned down by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The council submitted the bid under the Townscape Heritage Programme designed to improve conservation areas in need of investment.

It is now putting together a new "regeneration strategy" for the town.

The Victorian water tower was built in the early 1860s over three wells for the Sheerness Local Board of Health and is now in a conservation area. In 2009 it was one of 31 "important" buildings in Kent deemed to be "at risk".

There were a number of ambitious schemes for the water tower announced in 2012 but it was sold in 2014 with no work started. In 2017 Swale council passed plans to convert it into 29 apartments but that permission has now lapsed.

In the last few weeks details of the derelict state of the tower have been sent to the Landmark Trust which renovates forgotten 'follies', disused towers and abandoned arsenic mines and turns them into quirky holiday lets. It already has other properties in Kent.

The water tower site, which includes an abandoned shopping centre once used by Alldays, is larger than usual for the trust.

But it is understood it will be "considered" at its next Potentials Meeting early next month.

Campaigners have also pleaded with Swale council in the past to compulsory purchase the site, as it did to save the Sheerness Dockyard Church in Blue Town less than a mile away.

Swale council has been asked for a comment.

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