The fond days of post haste MailMarks
post arrive now? At our rural home in East Farleigh, it used to be a race a year or two back between the newspapers and post arriving first at around 7am. Then the post fell back to
SO what time does your
about 9am. In more recent months it has been about lunchtime. Now we are starting to see deliveries closer to 5pm. To accommodate the vast
size of modern newspapers and safeguard staff when we had a lively dog we attached a letterbox to the garden gate. We are well used now to
many cold, mystery walks to that gate! We will leave the box there.
The way things are going it will save being awakened in the middle of the night after the next change in Royal Mail schedules! Just as well almost every-
thing urgent now arrives by email.
DENNIS FOWLE - President Kent Campaigning Journalist of the Year 2001 email:
dfowle2011@aol.com
Business is tough I MUCHadmire the small
shopkeepers who put in long hours to provide a smiling, ef- ficient service to make a liv- ing.
But then I like going in to the
new Tesco Express shops which offer much the same va- riety as large supermarkets and simple, modern shopping. In the Maidstone area, Tesco
keeps growing. Another at the foot of Loose Road could be the 10th outlet – and probably not the last. Small shops are rightly worried. Business life is so often very
tough – and I see only one winner here.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
You can write to us at: Downs Mail, 2 Forge House, Bearsted Green Business Park, Bearsted, Maidstone, ME14 4DT or e-mail:
info@downsmail.co.uk
All in 13 minutes Dear Sir - I have just seen the "Agenda and decisions and draft minutes" of the cabinet meeting of Maidstone Borough Council on Wednesday March 9, 2011 (available online at .
http://moderngov.maidstone.
gov.uk/ieAgenda.aspx?M=721& AI=0) I skimmed through them, reading some bits and skipping others. On reaching the end of the document I was surprised and shocked to realise I had spent far longer reading about the meeting than it actually took. During the course of this meeting: Eleven decisions were taken relating to the High Street im- provement project, committing the council to spending mil- lions of pounds. Areport of the director of re- generation and communities was considered and a recom- mendation to full council was agreed to disband the Strategic Housing Advisory Committee and replace it with a Housing Consultative Board with new terms of reference. Four decisions relating to
the updating of the Corporate Improvement Plan were taken. The report of the leader on
the Forward Plan was consid- ered and three amendments were agreed. An oral report on Executive
Procedural Rules by the head of democratic services was con- sidered, that resulted in two recommendations being made.
28 South
All this took only 13 minutes, starting at 6.30pm and ending at 6.43pm. I was under the impression
that democracy, although re- garded as the best system, was imperfect because it worked so slowly. There are questions we must
ask: Is the ruling party of Maid-
stone Borough Council giving sufficient consideration to the important decisions it is taking? Are too many decisions being
taken behind closed doors out of the public gaze and then being rubber stamped at formal cabinet meetings? Is this how we want our democracy to work? Many a dictator would look
with envy at the brutal effi- ciency of the decision making process at that meeting. Jim Grogan
The Landway, Bearsted
Link road failure Dear Sir - I refer to the item on the M20 Junction 8 site in your March edition. I note that Cllr Chris Garland has discounted the chance of the link road from Junction 8 to the south of Maid- stone being built in the foresee- able future and probably not until after 2026. This is despite the fact that a clear promise was made to build the link a number of years ago. This is a long-standing issue
on which the Conservative ad- ministrations of both Maidstone borough and Kent County
Support traders SO is Government really
going to strangle much crazy legislation which throttles and discourages small businesses? I wrote recently that no one should become an MP without working for six months in a small business after I heard of proposed changes in maternity and paternity leave. It seems the Government
now really is listening and would like to encourage enter- prising and risk-taking busi- nesses. But let’s wait and see! With all that’s happening in
our economy just now, they are by far our best hope for a brighter future.
Council have had a complete blindspot for many years. Both councils have consistently failed to deal with the traffic problems resulting fromthe ab- sence of a link road, affecting both the town centre and the eastern suburbs of Maidstone, to the detriment of the residents whomthey represent. Those re- sponsible clearly have little un- derstanding of the daily effects on residents of their failure to deal with the problem and I am afraid that Cllr Garland's pro- jected timescale for the possible construction of the link road may well be too late forme and possibly for many others. Cllr Garland is my represen-
tative on Maidstone Borough Council but I am afraid that he and his Conservative col- leagues on both the borough council and county council have now lost my trust and support as a result of their com- plete failure on this matter. Charles Lucas,
Willington Street, Maidstone
Take an active role Dear Sir - On Thursday May 5, voters will decide who repre- sents them in local elections across England.
There will also be a referendum on whether we use the ‘first past the post’ or ‘alternative vote’ system to elect MPs to the UK Parliament. Many of your readers may
want to set up a campaign group, stand as a candidate or start a political party. If so, please check out the rules on the electoral commission’s website.
PeterWardle Chief Executive, Electoral Commission To contact Downs Mail just phone 01622 630330
Development next to mayor’s
home on hold A PROPOSED five-home devel- opment directly next to mayor Cllr Eric Hotson’s Staplehurst home was deferred due to a lack of information. Bluebell Development Serv-
ices applied to erect three de- tached (two would be three-storey high) and a pair of semi-detached homes on land adjacent to Surrenden Mews, bordering High Street and NicholsonWalk. Cllr Eric Hotson lives in
White Willows, the other side of NicholsonWalk. Due to may- oral business he was unable to attend the planning committee meeting but argued, in written form, that the proposal was out- of-character with the conserva- tion area and nearby listed building Surrenden House. He added: “The site is valu-
able green-land in the heart of the village and the develop- ment will lessen the quality of the local environment. The pri- vacy afforded to the bedrooms and conservatory of the bunga- low, TheWillows, will be lost. “The officer admits that the current screening would be re- duced in the winter months by the removal of the horse chest- nut. This loss of privacy has not been taken sufficiently into ac- count.” The occupiers of 21 proper-
ties in Crowther Close also signed an objecting petition, where other concerns raised were lack of parking space and the perceived “ugly” architec- tural design of the new devel- opment. Clive Shaw, a director of Bluebell Development Services, emphasised the development’s sustainable credentials, with sedum roofs, roosting boxes for bats and birds and measures taken to enable the area’s inver- tebrates thrive. Referring to the style of build-
ing design, he added: “I appre- ciate it is very new and different, but someone in his- tory has to take the first step. That is what I am trying to do.” The committee’s general view
was that the applicant had not furnished them with sufficient information to make a decision. Cllr Fran Wilson said: “We
are asked to approve new buildings in a conservation area at the back of a listed building but we have nothing to tell us the quality of materials being used. “I have no problem with put-
ting a modern building against a listed building providing the quality of design is first class, but we have not had any proof that it is first class in visual terms. I am delighted by the sustainable virtues but I can’t decide on this tonight.” Mem- bers voted to defer for more in- formation from the applicant.
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