Wheatsheaf roundabout back under consideration
Veteran campaigners prepare to take on KCC for third time
A roundabout plan has come back round again and been indicated as proposal for a key Maidstone junction.
Friends and neighbours Bill Laidler and Don Bates, both from Marion Crescent, Maidstone, are preparing once again to fight KCC over its plans to “improve” the A229 Wheatsheaf junction. It will be the third time, that the highways authority has come up with a scheme that has involved the closure of Cranbourne Avenue at the busy junction. Mr Bates said: “The first time they tried, it was 40 years ago.” Previously the pair successfully organised petitions and lobbied councillors to see off plans they say would only improve the junction at the expense of causing problems elsewhere.
Mr Bates explained: “If traffic can’t access the junction from Cranbourne Avenue, it will have to go north along Marion Crescent then via Plains Avenue and South Park Road to join the Loose Road at the Armstrong Road junction - which itself is already a bottleneck. West Park Road with its many chicanes is already one of the most dangerous roads in Maidstone.”
One of the most recent proposals for the Wheatsheaf involved the compulsory purchase and demolition of the Wheatsheaf pub. That has been dropped in a new scheme by WSP traffic consultants on behalf of KCC. The new plan involves the compulsory purchase of part of the front gardens of five homes from 200 Loose Road to 208 Loose Road, plus the corner of the courtyard in front of Footsteps Flooring. Mr Laidler said: “Anyone who suggests the closure of Cranbourne Avenue into the junction clearly has no knowledge of the local roads and the problems it will cause.”
He said: “For KCC to bring this forward again for a third time is just scandalous.”
KCC said: “A review will be undertaken of the impact of closure on surrounding junctions.”