LIB DEMS FIGHT FOR KENT'S GREEN LUNGS (North Thanet Liberal Democrats)

North Thanet Liberal Democrats <info@north-thanetlibdems.org.uk>

LIB DEMS FIGHT FOR KENT'S GREEN LUNGS

October 21, 2008 12:00 AM
Originally published by Liberal Democrats on Kent County Council

At the KCC meeting on Thursday 16th October, Kent Lib Dems argued for continuing protection for the green lungs of Kent . The Government South East Plan proposes to sweep away the protection for these 'Strategic Gap' areas, where green fields stop suburbs of towns joining up. This is against the advice of their own expert panel of advisers.

Maidstone Lib Dem Cllr Dan Daley successfully urged KCC to make protection of the gaps a major plank of KCC's opposition to the South East Plan. "Liberal Democrats have argued for 30 years to preserve these and other countryside protections......they must not be given up now"

Malling Cllr Trudy Dean pointed out that this policy might mark the Government's return to its earlier idea of an M20/A20 corridor of development. She pointed out the urgent need to protect the Medway Gap strategic gap which protects the fields between Maidstone and Aylesford, and between Medway and Maidstone, and called for the Councils of all these areas to agree between them to continue this protection despite the government's action. "If this green gap is lost" she said "we will be opening the floodgates to a ten square mile Maidstone-Medway cityscape."