Oaken Wood


inquiry nears BATTLELINES are being drawn up for the long-awaited plan- ning inquiry into land at Oaken Wood, due to get underway at the end of next month. The Gallagher Group wants to expand its quarry operation in the wood, between Barming and East Malling, but The Woodland Trust is among op- ponentswho say it will damage a range of natural habitats. OakenWood is home to a va-


riety of locally and nationally important rare flora and fauna and will be the test case for the Government’s National Plan- ning Policy Framework, in terms of whether it actually will protect ancient woodland. The Woodland Trust is en- deavouring to raise the £75,000 it needs to fund its part of the public inquiry, which they claim would not be necessary if the Government was protecting the irreplaceable habitat, as it claims to be. Woodland Trust chief execu-


tive Sue Holden says the new planning framework gives with one hand but takes away with the other. The document says: “Planning permission should be refused for development resulting in the loss or deterioration of irreplace- able habitats, including ancient woodland, unless the need for, and benefits of, the development outweigh the loss.” It will be for the inquiry to decidewhether the commercial development, together with the jobs it might generate and the impact on the local economy, outweighs the importance of the natural environment. The Gallagher Group submit-


ted plans to KCC in August 2010 for permission to extend the Hermitage Quarry into OakenWood. Despite 1,000 ob- jections, the application was granted, but the Woodland Trust, Kent Wildlife Trust, and 6,500 supporters who wrote to Secretary of State Eric Pickles, succeeded in their request for the case to be called in. A public inquiry will start on November 27 and is expected to last three weeks.


Call to keep 999 trips local By Dennis Fowle


MAIDSTONE area emergency patients are still complaining they are being taken 18 miles to the TunbridgeWells Hospital in Pembury when they feel they should be treated closer to home in Maidstone. MP Helen Grant has taken up


their case with Glenn Douglas, chief executive of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust. Mr Douglas wrote back, saying: “Our clinical teams con- tinue to work closely with South East Ambulance Service to ensure every patient who can be seen and treated at Maid- stone Hospital in an emergency is treated there when an ambu- lance is called. “Patients with routine and


uncomplicated fractures can be treated atMaidstone Hospital or stabilised and transferred to Tunbridge Wells if more seri- ous.


“We will further clarify with SECAMB that emergency calls for patients who appear to have a routine/uncomplicated fracture can be treated at Maidstone. “Many fractures can be com- plicated and require specialist orthopaedic care. In these in- stances, the ambulance service


Dennis Fowle, president of DownsMail,was re-electedchair- man ofMASH (Maidstone Action forServices in Hospital)at thean- nual meeting. He has been a localhealth campaigner formore than 10 years. Contact MASH on www.mashmaidstone.co.uk


Two honoured by fire service TWO Larkfield residents have been honoured at Kent Fire and Rescue annual awards ceremony. Sixteen-year-oldGregg Harfleet (right) wonthird


prize in the service’s youth safety film competition “Hot Shots”. Entrants were invited to make a short film put-


ting across key safety messages in a way that would appeal to their peers. Gregg came up with an impressive water safety- themed parody of the Jessie J “Laserlight” music video. Larkfield watch manager


Mitchell Kelly (left) received his Long Service and Good Conduct Medal, awarded to those with at least 20 years of exemplary service. Prizes were presented by KFRS chief executive


AnnMillington,alongside Lord Lieutenant forKent, Lord De L’Isle and Bryan Cope, chairman of Kent and Medway Fire and Rescue Authority.


THREE proposed bus routes linking residents in West Malling, Hadlow and Borough Green to the Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury will not now go ahead. Cutbacks at the Maidstone


and TunbridgeWells NHS Trust mean the trust will only back commercially viable services – which these are not. The routes were proposed as


part of the planning application to Tunbridge Wells Council for the hospital, opened last year,


A LEYBOURNE woman with a history of depression died after taking an overdose of prescription drugs and alcohol. But a Maidstone inquest decided Lor-


raine Kemp’s death was an accident, and she never intended to take her own life. The inquest heard Mrs Kemp (56), from Redbank, Leybourne, had been admitted to hospital on numerous occasions in the past six years after overdosing on parac- etamol and co-codamol, but she had also been receiving help from the Maidstone mental health team, whom she invariably telephoned after taking drink and tablets. Mrs Kemp, who had worked as a meals- on-wheels driver, began suffering from de- pression in 2004, the inquest heard.


but research has shown that the subsidised cost to the Trust for a return journey for each pas- senger is uneconomical. Paul Bentley, the trust’s direc-


tor of strategy and workforce, said: “Research showed the serv- ice would result in a potential cost per passenger of £345.” Steve Humphrey, director of planning, transport and leisure, told the Joint Transportation Board for Tonbridge andMalling Council: “When Pembury Hospi- talwas granted planning permis-


But her husband, John, told the Maid-


stone and Mid-Kent coroner Patricia Hard- ing: “She was never suicidal. It was always a cry for help.” The inquest heard how Mrs Kemp, after overdosing three times in 2004, had sta- bilised until 2010, when she lost her licence for drink-driving, and consequently her job. She was admitted to A&E at Maidstone Hospital five times between March 2011 and February 2011, after taking an overdose. However, the sixth occasion, on February 20 this year, was the first time she had mixed her prescription drugs of amisulpride and the anti-depressant venlaxafine with alco- hol, which was to prove fatal. She told her husband: “Sorry, sorry, I


will err on the side of caution and, if a serious injury is sus- pected, take the patient to Tun- bridgeWells Hospital. “If the fracture is then found


to be less serious following X- ray examination, the patient is stabilised, discharged and seen as an outpatient at Maidstone Hospital’s fracture clinic, keep- ing on-going care as close to home as possible.” He welcomes information if Maidstone patients believe they should have been treated in their local hospital. The Downs Mail keeps a


watch on the level of activity in both Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells A&E departments and does not now have the deep concerns of last winter about an imbalance.


Homes plan


A CLUSTER of buildings in the centre of Aylesford have been earmarked for conversion to flats and maisonettes. The High Street site, known


as Aylesford Business Centre, includes buildings of various age, some listed, arranged around an internal courtyard in a conservation area. Plans submitted to Tonbridge


and Malling Council say the property cannot continue in its present use and propose eight self-contained residential units. The documents say the ad- joining former pub, The Little Gem, was recently acquired by the same owners.


Hospital bus services scrapped due to cutbacks


sion, a planning condition was attached that sought provision of bus services for five years. The NHSTrust nowconsider that this condition is unreasonable as the bus services to the more remote areas could not be providedwith considerable ongoing subsidy.” The trust has asked that the condition be removed and re- placed with a Section 106 legal agreement to support some bus services, but the terms of the agreement still have to be agreed.


Drink and tablets overdose ‘a fatal accident’


have really messed up this time.” The inquest heard she had drunk two


and a half times the legal limit for driving at the time of taking the tablets, before call- ingmental health team manager,who sum- moned an ambulance. In recording a verdict of accidental death, the coroner said: “Although Mrs Kemp had taken a significant number of tablets, they were not in themselves suffi- cient to be regarded as a fatal dose, How- ever, there was a significant amount of alcohol in her system, and it was the com- bination of drugs and alcohol that caused her death. “It was the unintended consequence of a deliberate act.”


To contact Downs Mail just phone 01622 630330 Malling 17


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