Reconsider the A274 Sutton Road/Willington Street Improvement Scheme

A274 Sutton Road/Willington Street Improvement Scheme

Kent County Council and Maidstone Borough Council are proposing to widen the A274 Sutton Road junction with Willington Street into six lanes, beginning in February 2018 by destroying mature Prunus cherry trees in Bell Meadow and mature trees/hedges along the Sutton Road, which screen properties and soak up emissions from passing traffic. These trees are also one of the few pleasant and welcoming sights to people entering the County Town through this increasingly built-up southern corridor.

We the undersigned believe that the current design is far too drastic, and that any minimal gains will not outweigh the destruction. Improvements could be made by using other, cheaper and less disruptive, methods. Compared with a number of other junctions, such as at the Wheatsheaf and the other end of Willington Street, any problems at this junction are relatively trivial and there is only a very limited period where traffic might, occasionally, need to wait for more than one change of traffic lights. Increasing the throughput through this junction, because it appears to be the only one with scope to do anything, can only exacerbate the more serious congestion problems at Morrisons, the Wheatsheaf and the Ashford Road/Willington Street junction.

We therefore call upon Kent Highways to:

1. ask Mr Wilkin and the other officers involved to read in full the Forestry Commission’s Report “The Case for Trees”, about the importance of trees in an urban environment -
https://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/eng-casefortrees.pdf/$file/eng-casefortrees.pdf -
before putting any part of this scheme in its present form into action, so that they understand that these trees have a monetary and environmental value;

2. give residents a firm assurance that no trees will be felled before we have had a proper consultation and all other options have been considered, including -

2a. giving traffic coming from Maidstone and turning left into Willington Street a slightly longer dedicated lane with its own traffic light filter, as originally planned, widening the road up to the hedge - which was planted some years ago for that specific purpose; and

2b. creating a filter lane from Sutton Road into the Wallis Avenue industrial estate so that traffic going southwards doesn’t have to queue behind vehicles waiting for a gap in oncoming traffic in order to turn right into that road;

3. ensure that adequate measures to eliminate pollution and traffic noise will be put in place;

4. make publicly available all measurements of current noise and pollution levels, and also the results of the traffic surveys - i.e. traffic flow at all times of the day and night, times, facts, figures, evidence - on which the business case for this scheme is based;

5. give the residents of Bell Meadow and Sutton Road a proper consultation on these and other measures before January 2018, as we are aware that the trees are due to be destroyed in February 2018; and

6. include in any public consultation and on both council websites information about how affected residents can apply for compensation, reduction in council tax and other mitigating measures for the loss of value in our homes and quality of life if the proposed scheme still goes ahead and we do lose our trees.