Regiment on the march in town

The County Town is getting ready for its annual Civic Parade.

Next month’s event will be the first official function of Maidstone’s newly-appointed Mayor, who will be Cllr Malcolm Greer.

The parade will be led by a Gurkha Band from 36 Engineers, and the regiment will also mark its freedom of the borough by marching through the town with fixed bayonets.

The Sappers will be joined by ex-servicemen’s groups, cadets, the voluntary ambulance services, rotary clubs and other civic bodies.

The parade, expected to be some 400-strong, forms up at County Hall before marching along Week Street and down the High Street, past the Town Hall, and on to All Saints’ Church in Mill Street.

After taking the salute from a dais outside the Town Hall as the parade passes, the Mayor and council members will follow on behind to join in the civic service, with the Mayor making the journey in a horse-drawn landau carriage, once owned by one of his predecessors, Sir Garrard Tyrwhitt-Drake.

The event is scheduled for Saturday, May 20, with a starting time of 11.15, with the church service at noon.

It is expected the public will line the route and greet the parade waving various flags and banners.

There will be a number of road closures for the occasion. Old College Horseway (next to All Saints’) will be shut from 6am to 1pm, and Jubilee Square and Bank Street closed from 9am to 5pm.

Other road closures will be on a rolling basis as the parade passes.

These closures will include Sandling Road junction with the White Rabbit roundabout, Station Road, St Faith’s Street, Week Street, High Street, King Street, Wyke Manor Road junction with King Street, Bank Street, Pudding Lane junction with High Street, Lower High Street, Mill Street, Bishop’s Way, Knightrider Street and College Road.

In addition, Mill Street car park will also be closed until 1pm.