Roadworks will all be worth it

Well, it seems the honeymoon is over. After several weeks when motorists hardly noticed that work on the Maidstone bridges gyratory scheme had begun, we all became crushingly aware of it this week.

The hope that the roadworks had been so carefully planned that the town would not suffer any significant delays was revealed as just a forlorn fantasy as six-minute journeys turned into 50-minute odysseys.

To be fair to Kent County Council, the problem was not of its making, rather it had to respond to the discovery of an unexpectedly deep hole in the carriageway after removing a traffic island. The problem was unexpected, but then we all knew something would go wrong at some point.

The delays have prompted some of the Twitterati to wonder whether the ultimate goal of a 74-second saving on journeys through the town is worth it. Well, yes it is. We should not suddenly forget the years we have all bemoaned the stupidity of north-bound traffic having to cross the River Medway twice for no good reason.

And we should also remember the improvements are not just to ease the congestion we experienced previously, but also to alleviate the congestion from the additional 18,560 homes that Maidstone council is planning to build.

Without the bridge works, things could only get far worse.

In this era of austerity, we are actually very lucky that KCC is prepared to splash out £5.7 million on the town’s roads.

There are plenty of other communities in the county that would love to have that money to spend on their highways.