The campaign to abolish grammar schools in Kent has been suspended - after too few parents had signed a petition for a ballot.

Parents seeking to end the 11-plus and grammar system in Kent would have needed to gather 46,000 names to hold a ballot - but had gathered less than 7,000.

Although the campaigners against selection have promised to begin the name-gathering process again, the failure to trigger a ballot in Kent will be seen as a substantial setback for anti-grammar campaigners.

Kent has the greatest remaining number of pupils taking the 11-plus in England, as it is one of only a handful of authorities which has retained a fully selective schools system.

Unlike the recent ballot over a single school - at Ripon Grammar School in North Yorkshire - any vote in Kent would have affected every secondary school in the authority.

The Kent Stop the Eleven Plus campaign says its next campaign against selection will begin in September, when campaigners say they will be better prepared for the process of gathering names,

If sufficient names are gathered, a ballot in Kent would be likely to be staged next spring or early summer.

But their pro-grammar opponents, Support Kent Schools, have called for an end to the threat of future campaigns.

Conservative education spokesman, John Bercow, welcomed the news and said it showed that parents did not want good schools "to live under threat of closure".

"There is no justification for hounding successful schools out of existence, for no reason other than political dogma."