Relief road ‘might not ease wider traffic woes’
The hotly-debated Leeds-Langley relief road may not actually help reduce traffic in Maidstone more widely, a council chief has claimed.
The proposed project has been the subject of a bitter, public feud between the borough council and Kent County Council (KCC).
A bypass was first suggested in the 1990s and in 2004 was named as a top transport priority.
But more recently Maidstone objected to KCC’s plan to use £200,000 of developer contributions intended for Sutton Road mitigation works to finance a feasibility exercise for the relief road and began a legal battle which ended up costing the taxpayer more than £100,000. The case was settled out of court earlier this year.
An update on the proposals was last week given to Maidstone’s Joint Transport Board, where members were told by senior major capital programme project manager Russell Boorman the initial modelling had been completed up to 2031 - the end of the borough’s Local Plan period.
He said: “The indications are while, as might be expected, a relief road would provide significant benefits to Leeds and Langley, its wider benefits to the existing network in southeast Maidstone may be limited. “Officers continue to work with [contractor] WSP to interrogate and fully understand the modelling work and assumptions made before the work is completed [so we can be] in a position to report to the strategic board.”
The revelations were met with disappointment by some councillors, including Cllr Gary Cooke, who said he thought Willington Street in particular would benefit from the project being completed, particularly if weight restrictions were put in place to limit the number of lorries on the road.
He said: “I think there was an expectation a relief road could and would deliver more relief to the surrounding area than this report seems to indicate.” Committee chairman Cllr David Burton added: “I don’t think any of us have given up on this, there’s lots of constructive, cross-council dialogue to be had. “It’s only just beginning, it’s not the end.” A full report is due in several weeks.