After years of discussion, a group of aircraft conservationists have come up with a lasting memorial to the world famous Short Brothers aviation manufacturers, once based on Rochester's Esplanade.

Volunteers from the Medway Aircraft Preservation Society based at Rochester Airport have rescued a dilapidated float plane - one of only two known to have survived in the world - which was falling into disrepair in a hangar.

They have spent more than three years restoring the craft, including the painstaking task of building new wings, and they plan to install the plane at the airport where their new workshop is currently being built.

For stalwart MAPS member Robin Brooks, the tribute to the famous Short's factory is "a long time coming".

Mr Brooks said: "We just couldn't see her rotting away in the hangar at Redhill.

"When we got her, she was in a sorry sate and had been exposed to the elements.

"She was half a plane, just a fuselage."

Thanks to a grant from the Rochester Bridge Trust, the Pobjoy-Short S16 Scion 11 floatplane is set to become a flagship for the airport, as well as a memorial to the factory which employed so many people across Medway over the years.

The plane has a a chequered history.

First flown by chief test pilot John Lancaster Parker, it was modified before being dismantled and taken to Rochester Airport where Short Brothers had another manufacturing factory.

In September 1940, the Scion was damaged in an enemy bombing of the works and it was transferred to works in Northfleet.

Remaining here for nearly a year, it was transferred to No. 24 Elementary Flying Training School (EFTS) at Barton-in-the-Clay, Bedfordshire, where it was changed from a float to a land plane.

Here it was used by the RAF for training purposes after which in 1945 it returned to its prior civil use. This continued for a number of years before it was taken off charge and began a new life as a museum aircraft.

Mr Banks said: "Surely this must be the ultimate tribute to a Medway company that today has little recognition?"

The Short brothers - Eustace, Horace and Oswald - built their first factory and constructed their first aircraft in 1909 in Leysdown.

Read more: All the latest news from Medway

Read more: All the latest news from Sheppey

Read more: All the latest news from Gravesend