No Transport Strategy for Maidstone with Conservative's 19,600 house plan (Liberal Democrats on Kent County Council)

No Transport Strategy for Maidstone with Conservative's 19,600 house plan

May 17, 2014 6:14 PM

When they released Maidstone's draft housing growth plan recently, the Conservative cabinet at MBC surely hoped that nobody would notice the lack of traffic strategy for the borough.

This brought into sharp relief at Thursday's full council meeting at KCC when County Councillor Brian Clark, supported by Maidstone Lib Dem members, asked the head of Highways a simple question:

"Can the Cabinet Member for Environment & Transport comment on the failure to set up an integrated transport strategy for Maidstone and explain KCC's strategy to reach consensus with MBC on transport policy?"

Although in responding, Cllr Brazier confirmed that there is on-going dialogue between MBC and KCC, given that the county's response to Maidstone's draft Local showed a huge chasm between both authorities, it had looked unlikely that consensus would be reached any time soon.

Looking for clarification, Cllr Clark asked, "Is the member confident that consensus will be reached?". The question was met with a stark response.. "No!"

After the meeting Cllr Clark stated, "Sadly, with no likely consensus on the Local Plan or Transport Strategy, Maidstone's Conservative administration has given a green light to green field development and a red light to any meaningful improvement to our highways."

End