‘Disgraceful’ benches a slight on park donor Sir Garrard’s memory’ Mr Crawford, president of the Maidstone and Mid


BENCHES that commemorate the man who be- queathed Cobtree Manor Park to the people of Maid- stone are in a "disgraceful" condition. Bernard Crawford (pictured), of Chatham Road, Maidstone, who regularly walks his dog in the park, said: "It grieves me every time I walk past them. It wouldn't take much to clean them up." One of a circle of five benches is dedicated to Sir


GarrardTyrwhitt-Drake, 12 times mayor of Maidstone, who left his estate to the local populace. The others honour his wife and Messrs Fletcher, Bunting and Monckton - all former chairmen of the trustees.


Kent Sunday Football League, has complained to the borough council, which manages the park in Forstal Road on behalf of the trust. He said: "The benches are going to rack and ruin. I


have been on to the council but nobody seems to be doing anything about it. "SirGarrard gave all that land yet those benches are in


such a state. It's disgraceful." Current trust chairman Richard Corben said he had


passed the issue to the Cobtree officer. "I'm sure it will get sorted."


Questions about ‘gas fromwaste’ scheme


LARKFIELD borough councillor David Thornewell is to seek more detailed information about a pro- posed energy-generating waste-recycling plant at the former SCA Containerboard site. Cllr Thornewell was among the "steady flow" of visitors to a village hall exhibition of plans by Swiss company Biossence for a "gasification" scheme. He said: "There was a lot of interest. The general


viewwas 'what is gasification -howdoes it work and what is the effect on the environment?' "In Larkfield, the particular issue is traffic to the


site. The only access for heavy traffic is along Ley- bourneWay. "The secondary worry is that if any of the traffic coming to the site is below 7.5 tonnes it could use NewHythe Lane. It wasnot clear tomewhere all the rubbish was coming from - if it was local, in lighter vans, it could well be below that limit. New Hythe Lane is congested at the moment. People are already concerned about levels of traffic on that road, and indeed on LeybourneWay." Cllr Thornewell said the company,which has not


yet submitted a planning application, is “still work- ing up the scheme”. "They are thinking about the possibility of having


a solar panel site on the other side of the river on the island site inAylesford. “There is still a footbridge across the Medway


there and the connection to the National Grid would be on the other side of the river. There's a sub-station there. It would be another way of generating elec- tricity but they have not consulted on that idea yet. "It is early stages. My intention, once the (May 5)


election is over, is to seek a meeting with them to get more detail.Myconcerns are traffic,howit operates its process, whether there will be 24-hour move- ments, what type of noise it generates and from where," added Cllr Thornewell, who also chairs the parish council. The company insists its gasification waste recy-


cling process is cleaner and more efficient than in- cineration, and that its scheme would create 100 jobs for the area. A spokesman was pleased with the good atten-


dance at the two exhibitions, at both Larkfield and the Cobdown Sports and Social Club in Ditton. "There were some concerns, mainly about traffic,


which we will attempt to resolve, before coming back with detailed plans, probably in June," he added.


Green electricity BIOESSENCE announced on its website last September that it had signed an option agreement with SCA Packaging Ltd to acquire a site to process “residual waste streams through one of its ad- vanced gasification projects”. “The planned renewable energy


facility, whichwill produce green electricity, heat and steam, is lo- cated on an industrial site…adja- cent to a potential heat user. The site has significant poten-


tial to become a centre for local wastemanagement and Biossence intends, in cooperationwith part- ners, to build waste treatment process plants alongside its en- ergy recovery facility.” The company says its process


does not involve incineration but “thermal decomposition to pro- duce synthetic hydrocarbon gas”.


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