Polling station changes for voters

When voters come to cast their ballots in next May’s general election a number will do so in a different place.

Maidstone council has carried out its five-yearly review of polling stations and decided there will be a number of changes.

In Bridge Ward, St Simon Stock RC School will no longer be used because of problems with parking. The new station is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in London Road.

St Andrew’s Church Hall in Tonbrdige Road, which serves Heath Ward, is to be re-instated as a polling station to accommodate electors outside of the former Oakwood hospital site.

Some complained that the Beechwood Community Hall, in Marigold Way, was hard to find. However, Beechwood will continue to be the poll- ing station for those on the estate.

For the Collier Street parish of Marden and Yalding Ward, voting will move from St Margaret’s Church to St Margaret’s School, in Collier Street, because the council’s polling staff found the church was too cold.

In Lenham, the St Edmunds Centre in Platts Heath will serve those in the village’s South Parish.

Some face a small change of distance. The station serving Headcorn is moving from the games room of the Hawkenbury Inn in Hawkenbury Road to the pub’s small restaurant.

The borough’s returning officer said the move would keep voting “away from the bar area and lessen the opportunity for users of the public house to interfere with the democratic process”.