Hear how to cut vehicle use – I’ll drive

Here’s a cracking insight into how the modern British state works. Robert Mellor, the “independent” (they never actually are) inspector, scrutinising Maidstone’s Local Plan complains that the county town has “unusually high rates of car ownership and use”. He demanded the borough take action to alleviate it and went to a public meeting to discuss it – by car.

It’s almost two months since December 9, when the Kentish Gazette submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to Kent Police about the level of sex crimes in Canterbury. It comes as no surprise that the county’s constabulary failed to comply with the law which states that requests must be answered within 20 working days. The force is one of the worst responders in the county to FOI requests. In this most recent case, perhaps Kent Police is just being incompetent – or maybe it would just rather that the tax-paying public didn’t know. Freedom of information? Frustration of information, more like.

What’s with those people who like to ask Facebook, of all places: “What kind of society have we become?” What do they get from this sort of thing? The other day someone posted an uncorroborated report that a rough sleeper had been urinated on in Canterbury. I don’t doubt that this may well have happened – and I know for a fact it’s happened before. But it says nothing about what kind of society “we have become”. It simply says some people are nasty. It says there are morons who are so drunk they’ve abandoned all inhibition and morality and are acting up in front of their muppet mates.

I appreciate that well-off people with homes in south Canterbury don’t want any of the new ones planned for Mountfield Park. But how right is it for them to launch a legal battle to stop people who do need homes getting them?

Inspector Robert Mellor