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Political signals areweak MailMarks
NOWUkip has won a parliamentary
seat in nearby Rochester and Strood, after successes in European and local government elections, are there local signals to read for May’s general election? Probably, yes – but most signals are currently weak. The certainty is Ukip is now a real force in British politics and this has weakened both parties most likely still to form the next government and replaced the Lib Dems as the only real national alternative or party of protest. We must now wait until May to find if
Ukip is any more than a party of protest. My view is that their support will decline markedly when the electorate is making the big decision of who they want to run the country. Who will win most trust on the major economic issues, NHS, immigration and Europe?Will David Cameron or Ed Milliband come up with heavy winning blows? Can either win enough seats without forming another coalition? Who knows what strange marriages
could be formed involving the nationalist parties, UKIP, Greens, Lib Dems and Independents. Perhaps it will drive many of us to the Raving Loonies. Kent is a Tory stronghold and this may
Military solution to homes
Dear Sir – It has been a moving year with many tributes about WorldWar One. While war remains evil, strangely man can move mountains to achieve the impossible; attempting to capture a hill, territory or mere woodland. Yet a simple plan for providing homes
for local people in our borough (Mail Marks, December) has taken years to produce, goalposts have constantly changed and villages to receive these new properties are almost unanimous in rejection of every development. My village has its own campaign called “Hands off Coxheath”. Why is it such an emotive issue? It is not as if the new homes will be built above or below our own? How can we claim to care about homelessness and yet all refuse to have new homes built in our own back yard? Are we all patriotic Nimbys? The logistics to support a regiment are
huge and yet it appears that to build a small number of homes in the borough is an Everest of a task where no village appears to want to make a compromise to help. I suggest the questions that might be
worth asking are: “If not in your village, where should your sons and daughters live?” or “Would it be sensible for all the
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Stephen Eighteen Editor
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32 Maidstone Town Xmas 2014 Diane Nicholls
Assistant editor
diane@downsmail.co.uk 01622 734735 ext 232
Jane Shotliff Journalist
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Dawn Kingsford Journalist
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DENNISFOWLE President
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well continue beyond the general election. But many Kent MPs will be prey nervous just now.
Up the Stones MAIDSTONE nowadays rarely gets
on the big sporting map, so what joy when the Stones reached the first round of the FA Cup, forced a replay at League Two side Stevenage and then scored a late winner in the home replay televised live from their excellent stadium. What a night! Life has been so tough for the Stones
for the past 25 years or so, but with recent strong management and bags of enthusiasm we now have one of the most successful non-league clubs in England. How the crowds now turn out to give remarkable support. Could this trigger a revival in Maidstone’s sporting fortunes? Maidstone Rugby Football Club look
good at the top of their league. The Mote Cricket Club had a tough time last season and are hoping their site development
proposed homes to be built on the hill ridge that runs from Leeds village right across to the upper part of Yalding hill so that no new homes will ever be flooded?” The British Government, or county council or borough council need a leader to make that military decision so that the nation actually gets on with the job. Democracy needs someone with balls to make a decision for a hill, territory or mere woodland. I am forcing a link between military thinking and house-building that should be infinitely easier to achieve, and yet our collective thinking of when and where to place our homes drips like a tap. It is a clumsy, inexcusable link, but isn’t that the point? Shouldn’t our conscience be pricked by a simple lack of homes for today’s generation, let alone the next? There is no real excuse. We have become mean and petty people forgetting how really tough life was a century ago. Worse still, that we think we are a decent people because we developed a charity culture that covers a panacea of issues where we don’t manage the situation properly, whether it is looking after children, our own health, our livelihoods and all other challenges that we endure both locally and nationally. Richard Maryan, Coxheath
proposals will lead to a major change in their playing and financial fortunes. Could the Kent cricket festival return? Other sports show great interest in joining this Mote adventure. Maidstone Hockey Club have now slipped from their very high pedestal and could do with a boost. Sporting successes reflect so well on a
town and its reputation, both nationally and worldwide.
Park peace please
ALARM bells rang when I received Maidstone Council’s press release promoting a big rock festival in Mote Park on theweekend of July 25 and 26. I support the council’s policy to stage
more aractive income-earning events, but when this policywas announced I warned against very noisy musical events which are known to be very unpopular with many neighbours. The council says it will work with the organiser on noise management “to minimise disruption for local residents”. The organiser will be in touch with residents closest with more detail. These neighbours have suffered on
more than one occasion through appalling noise. It must not happen again.
Richard, this is an interesting take on the housing situation. Thinking back to a century ago, the misty-eyed rhetoric of the past 12 months should not overlook the reality that almost a million British servicemen died during those four bloody years. “Moving mountains” in warfare usually
carries a high cost in life and finances, and in the case of WWI the British achievement was not to conquer a far-off land or further humanity, but to pragmatically retain the democratic status quo. As for housing in modern-day Maidstone,
we are not talking about an international emergency, but a complex domestic issue where the solution you seem to suggest – plonking thousands of homes in the countryside – is the most lazy and damaging. There are preventable causes for the increased local pressures on housing – foreign and buy-to-let investors encouraged by artificially low interest rates and council tax levels that advantage the rich, spiralling immigration, empty properties, London- centric economy etc. This view coming down from the establishment that it is inevitable that homes need to be built in the countryside is a fallacy fuelled primarily by political and corporate interests.
According to the Campaign to Protect Rural England, there are 1,600 hectares of
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