downsmail.co.uk Projection not a forecast


Dear Sir – This is an open leer for Cllr Annabelle Blackmore, the leader of Maidstone Council: In the July issue of Downs Mail, your predecessor Chris Garland is quoted as saying that he had seen a copy of a report by KCC consultants which gave a projection of 19,600 additional homes for Maidstone in the period 2011-2031. This figurewas at odds, he implied, with


the forecast need of 14,500 homes in the county council’s formal response to the borough council’s housing proposals. I have no inside knowledge of discussions


that KCC might or might not have had with outside experts, but if KCC did take advice on housing projections for Maidstone I can readily agree that those expertswould almost certainly have come up with a figure of about 19,600 dwellings over the 20-year period. That is because a projection is a tightly defined statistical construct applying specified assumptions about fertility, mortality and migration to recent population trends.Aprojection shows what the populationwould be if those assumptionswere to be realised and if no other significant factors (such as government policy or changing economic circumstances) come into play. Producing a projection is like puing standard ingredients into a sausage machine – whoever shovels in the ingredients will always come up with the same “sausage”, ie any expertwould produce the same projection. Aprojection, though, is not a forecast of


what is likely to happen in a given context – it is merely a statement of whatwould happen if specified assumptions applied and if therewere no other factors atwork. The Office for National Statistics emphasises that its projections are not forecasts. It is easy to see the difference between a projection and a forecast if you go back to the year 1996 (or thereabouts): a population- and-housing projection for Maidstone made then, for the 20 years to 2016,would have been wildly wrong because, by definition, it would have been unable to take into account changing government policies, for example on inward migration. Housing projections rightly feed into an intelligence-based forecast of likely future need, but they are an ingredient, not the final product. As I see it,MBCand KCC disagree about whether Maidstone needs 19,600 houses or 14,500 because they are talking about different things:MBCis using projections (what the housing needwould be in tightly defined circumstances) and KCC is aiming for a forecast (what the actual need is likely to be taking into account the wider context). Local people must be disappointed and bemused to see an illusory bale being fought in the columns of the local press. Surely the time has now come for the borough council and the county council to sit down together, to reach an agreed forecast of actual future housing need and to


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build a united front. RichardWadey, Upper Fant Road, Maidstone


Maidstone Council has the responsibility for identifying the borough’s objectively assessed housing need.We need to work closely with other organisations including KCC to meet this need. Much detailed work has been undertaken to calculate the housing need and this will be regularly reviewed and refined as new information becomes available. Equally thorough work is being done by Maidstone Council with colleagues at KCC concerning the infrastructure needs arising from growth in housing in the borough – including for transport and education – so that Maidstone Council has a deliverable plan.


Since I took office in June I have aended


several meetings with KCC elected members and officers. All meetings about the dra Maidstone local plan have been productive and conducted in good spirit with co-operation on both sides. There are occasions when articles appear in the


media that seek to create an issue or problem, but I can assure you that this is definitely not the case. I ampleased to say that recently our collaboration has resulted in funding to address some current and future transport requirements. I amconfident that working together we will produce a plan which we can continue to deliver together. Response by Cllr Annabelle Blackmore, Maidstone Council leader


I, for one, hoped it took as long as possible! Brian Millen, Chapman Avenue, Maidstone


Give more to fewer MPs


Dear Sir – There is a growing crack in British politics that has been wholly caused by the British public. We are not prepared to pay a decent salary


for decent politicians becausewe are squeezing our own people with low wage/low skill jobs that means any potential pay increase in the public sector is being “downsized” to meet a public expectation that if I'm suffering you must suffer too. Hugh Robertson is not the only casualty in


thiswar to achieve a balance betweenwork and family life. There is constant talk of the growing gap between the haves and have- nots andwe also have millions of British people struggling just to survive as ifwe were living in the 19th century with Charles Dickens releasing his monthly chapters once again.


Dennis Fowle, you rightly support our


MPs but perhaps the existing cake could be redistributed if you compare our system with that of USA. The House of Representatives has just 435 members representing some 300 million people across most of a continent – not just a very small island. We keep geing it wrong because those


Road repair not before time


Dear Sir – The article “Drivers hit by road closure” (Willington Street) and the paragraph in the parish council report on Detling referring to the quality of resurfacingwork in Church Lane, in the Downs Mail August 2014 (East edition) prompted me to comment on the many years of hazardous, if slow, motoringwe have had to endure inWillington Street. Potholes, subsidence and numerous


roadworks over the last few years have been abysmal in the quality of repair and resurfacing. Local residents and, I amsure, the many non-locals who useWillington Street as a rat-run between the Suon Road and the A20 look forward to a decent, fairly smooth new road surface “sometime in the future”. Iwould add that sinceWillington Street


has been closed to through traffic the quality and time of journeys to and from our homes has improved immeasurably and I did not look forward to the return of the horrendous traffic jams and sheer volume of traffic that returned when the resurfacingwas finished.


that control this country don't have the management skills to get it right. Even in this small island and even smaller countywe don't have enough skilled people to make the right decisions at the right time across many, many professions, which is why the people of Barming, Bearsted, Boughton Moncheslea, Coxheath, Marden and beyond are all moaning bierly about planned sites for additional housing because the public doesn't like change. The British Government has set new national building targets to cope with a huge and on-going demand and yet nobody wants new homes on their doorstep. The existing thinking needs rethinking but who is going to do it? Ifwewant to retain the Mr Robertsons


and Mrs Grants of thisworld then a management solutionwould be to halve the number of MPs and pay them more. Richard Maryan, by email


I wholeheartedly agree with your idea to reduce the number of MPs. In Kent’s case, our borough and county councillors work hard to ensure the area is covered adequately. When they are not being whipped by their


party to vote on a particular issue that might have lile to do with their constituents, MPs tend to cherry-pick the topics they pursue and don’t have as much accountability to voters – no annual meetings, no annual reports etc – compared to local councils, whose decisions usually affect local people more anyway. MPs could still maintain coverage of their


patches perfectly well if they were significantly culled, though this will not happen for the obvious reason of self-interest. Response by Stephen


Comment


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