There’ll be no love lost at the budget meeting

IT is budget time at County Hall with the set-piece meeting today to agree the council tax and the small matter of making £95m of savings. It could be the last hurrah for some elected members, with a rather tricky election looming in May.

So, despite the meeting taking place on February 14, we are not expecting councillors to stage a love-in.

We suspect the opposition parties will be hoping for a Valentine’s Day massacre.

EDUCATION chiefs say they are determined to do what they can to curb the scale of private tutoring for the 11-plus that has grown up in recent years.

Not that the burgeoning industry in coaching seems especially perturbed.

Off The Record is alerted to the brochure of one company advertising Easter and summer revision courses for children which tells parents: “The last thing you need is a complete gap between July and September, when the competitive 11+ tests begins.”

Nothing like inducing a bit of panic to get worried parents to open their wallets. And not only that, they are running the courses... from a grammar school. controversy that would result.

Canterbury suburbs and out-of-town shopping have grown so much that the city is “owed” some thought given to building outer roads.

The city council is planning for the next 20 years and yet Ian Brown, the head of planning, has told me that outer roads are not even to be considered on grounds of cost.

There will surely be extra development of housing in this time and even with the implementation of all the green transport issues suggested by Lynn Sloman, at her public meeting, the impermeability issue will remain.

There are those who may dismiss any new road building as a generator of extra traffic.

This can be the case, but surely not if the placement and design of such roads is carefully targeted.

Let’s push for a thorough traffic study and listen to all interest groups to see if new targeted roads would cut congestion at the city centre, improve air quality and give residents a better environment where buses, cycles and pedestrians can benefit.

It would be a long-term aim and would be costly, but perhaps without it all new development should be resisted.

Do those who intend to stand for the KCC elections have any constructive ideas? Nick Blake Leycroft Close, Canterbury

KENT County Council councillor Martin Vye (Lib Dem) has been instrumental in getting the traffic trial reversed, for which many will

HERNE Bay MP Sir Roger Gale issues a press release simmering with indignation over claims he said gay marriage would lead to incest.

To be fair, he didn’t actually say the word but it was what others contended was the meaning of his remarks, something entirely different.

The irony? Sir Roger rarely leaves anyone in any doubt exactly where he stands on any issue at all.

KENT County Council has a wellresourced and staffed public relations office but it seems it cannot do everything on its own. It has a contract with the well-known media monitoring outfit Gorkana. The cost to the taxpayer in December of its services? A mere £12,500.

MEANWHILE, the ever loyal Conservative South East MEP and daily Telegraph blogger Daniel Hannan is doing his bit to big up the County Hall Tories. “I’m off to visit the fantastically efficient Conservatives at Kent County Council,” he tweeted rather overenthusiastically.

To which came a reply: “You mean ‘fanatically’ surely?” thank him.

However, I couldn’t believe what I was reading (Towers Close To All Traffic For Survey, Kentish Gazette, February 7), regarding Pound Lane.

Did he really say what is quoted?: “The closure of Pound Lane...should have happened years ago.

“It is a residential street and families should not bear the impact of so much traffic looking for a way through.”

Has he been there? Like the Westgate Towers, is this just a fabricated reason for closure?

Since all the roads and streets in the St Dunstan’s area and in much of Canterbury are residential, that implies that they should all be closed to traffic! Traffic-free roads!

Station Road West is residential from end to end, with the exception of the station and the Goods Shed, the car park and two shops.

The other worst road for traffic, London Road, is residential.

Pound Lane has some houses and many small flats, but very few families, and much of the road is taken up by Barretts’ showrooms and repair works, the Butterfly Garden, a parking area, the city wall and the empty Gaol complex.

This road used to be horribly clogged up with traffic at rush hour times, exactly like Station Road West and St Dunstan’s Street and St Peter’s Place. But can we afford to close roads?

Keeping North Lane almost clear throughout the traffic trial was absurd. Carole Zepler Station Road West, Canterbury

Editor’s note: Of course Cllr Vye was quoted correctly.