Councillor should call for relief road

As Cllr Brian Clark will know as he lives in Boughton Lane, the governors of Oldborough Manor School were fighting the developers long before the present battle, over building on the school fields.

In 1990 the governors had been approached to sell off land to enable a developer to have access to another site via the school grounds, which would have had a road leading on to Boughton Lane.

The governors voted against such a sale for the following reasons:

1. The safety of the staff and children. The developer wanted to straighten the road, ideal for boy racers.

2. Consideration for our neighbours. We were, after all, a community school.

3. It put an area of ancient woodland (for which the school had won an award, presented by David Bellamy) in danger.

4. We felt we should honour the wishes of the Foster Clark family, who had donated the land to the county with the express desire it be used for educational purposes.

We also took the very early step of becoming a grant maintained school so ownership of the land became ours, thus affording protection against any further approaches. Now Cllr Clark has solved the traffic problem on his own doorstep, I trust he will be coming to help his constituents around this area, and add his voice to the increasing demand for a relief road. I can but hope. Don Wright Willington Street, Maidstone

Election manifestos can make for dreary reading. Fear of being radical makes far too many fall back on the kind of bland policy priorities that seem designed not to frighten young children and animals. The Green Party at least has a couple of eyecatching commitments, whether you agree with them or not. Its manifesto advocates solar panels over car parks and a Northern Ireland-style regional assembly for the county.

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