Kent UKIP's Excellent newly adopted Transport Policy

Below is Kent UKIP's new local transport policy which contains pure common sense. These proposals would have a positive impact in Swale partculalrly by creating an underpass or flyover by Stockbury roundabout which would alleviate much of the traffic chaos affecting Swale and Maidstone. See below:

Air Travel

Kent UKIP rejects the notion of a Thames Estuary Airport as environmentally unacceptable, and prohibitively expensive. Instead, UKIP Kent County Councillors would support the development of Manston Airport into a national standard Airport and support traffic infrastructure that supported this initiative.

Highways

Kent UKIP rejects the notion of constantly building new roads to alleviate traffic problems on the grounds of environmental sensitivity, prohibitive expense, and the fact that as a long-term solution to the travel chaos of the South-East it simply does not work. We would oppose by-passes unless there is clear and unequivocal local support for a proposal. Instead, we believe the focus should be on significant upgrading of existing junction points. Much of the traffic problems caused in villages and towns stems from the bottle-necks at certain junctions and the efforts made by motorists to avoid them. By upgrading crucial junctions, the flow of traffic can be improved and many of the associated problems – which are currently dealt with in piecemeal fashion at considerable expense and which mainly just move the problems from one area to another – will diminish. One example would be the A249 / M2 Stockbury Roundabout where an underpass or flyover would alleviate much of the traffic chaos affecting Swale and Maidstone.

The issue of potholes is one that causes considerable grief to a large number of drivers, and the current policy of refilling them on an almost yearly basis is short-termist and in the long run overly expensive. Kent UKIP would push for a programme of complete road replacement in areas which have a history of re-appearing potholes. Although initially more expensive, the savings recouped over several years will off-set this initial outlay and also prove a lot more popular with residents.

Drainage

KCC admits it does not know where most of its drains actually are, and whilst admitting this as long ago as 2008, has failed to address the problem. Kent UKIP would engage with parish and Town Councils who often have a better knowledge of where the drains actually are, and seek to work with local authorities to identify and maintain the drains on a local basis.

Public Transport.

Kent UKIP believes public transport is a social service and must be recognised as such. It has to be subsidised or die.

Bus services in Kent are notoriously inefficient from the users’ perspective, with many essential routes stopping running before 6 o’clock. This does not support commuters who work in our local towns and forces them to rely on cars. Kent UKIP would seek to introduce longer running services, with late evening services to link with major late night socialising areas such as Maidstone. The rural bus services are woefully limited and face yearly cut-backs. Kent UKIP would seek to expand the rural bus services, and look at new initiatives such as more extensive twice weekly services as opposed to limited daily services at off-peak times. We would also restore the 9am starting point for free bus passes for the elderly as this section of the population play an important role in volunteering such as working in charity shops, and the 9.30 start prohibits many of them getting to their place of volunteering in time for 10 o’clock starts. We would not be opposed to re-introducing in-house bus-services again where this proves a better means of providing the public with a reliable and efficient service.

Trains

Kent UKIP would push for a review of the Beeching line closures and would support initiatives to re-open closed lines and provide new services. We would seek to integrate these with supportive bus services and Tourism.

We propose the removal of wasteful and pointless High Speed trains running on domestic lines to the detriment of the normal travelling public, and feel the higher fares being imposed to pay for these services needs urgent review. Kent UKIP would be sympathetic to moves aimed at bring rail services back to being a public service again, as the past 15 years have seen a deterioration of rail efficiency, pricing and convenience for users.

We would support moves towards providing free off-peak train travel for pensioners.

HGVs:

The problem of foreign HGVs is well known to people living in Kent – Kent UKIP would like to see more checks of the road-worthiness of lorries entering the UK, and the application of import duties payable on the petrol brought into the country above a level sufficient to reach a garage in the UK. Lorries that have passed a road-worthiness test should then have to display a Brit-Disc to show conformity. Foreign lorries without such a disc should not be permitted on the roads.

Kent UKIP oppose the establishment of Lorry parks across Kent, such as those proposed at Bearsted and Borough Green – which would actually be on Greenbelt Land. Our solution to Operation Stack is to use the contraflow system properly.

We are totally opposed to the proposal permitting articulated trucks 2 metres longer than the current maximum of 15.65 metres. This would cause chaos on the roads and our infrastructure is not able to accommodate them without radical, expensive and unwanted changes.

Letters in the Press

Many UKIP letters have been printed in the Sittingbourne News Extra over the past few weeks, here are a select few:

In response to an attack by the local Labour Party regarding UKIP signs in European cars Ian Davison wrote this reply:

UKIP were criticised in the last weeks SNE that we were displaying UKIP signs in foreign made cars. It goes without saying like all the main parties we obviously support UK manufacturing. However Mr Truelove misses the point that UKIP supports free European trade. We want a referendum asking if we would like to be members of the EU. He should not confuse this with being in or out of Europe because this is completely different as Europe is our biggest trading partner. If we are not members of the EU, I will continue buying my VW, in Europe they will continue to buy British pharmaceuticals (which is our biggest export) and that will not change. The Swiss and Norwegians per capita are the wealthiest people in Europe and they prosper whilst being two countries that are not members of the EU. I do not want to live in a country where 85% of our legislation is made in Brussels with a membership cost of £45 million a day and we cannot expel criminals from our country because of European Human Rights laws. Perhaps Mr Truelove should concentrate on these more important issues

By the way if the inference was that we should buying British cars, well my pocket won’t run to a TVR or Aston Martin which I believe are the only two British companies producing cars
Ian Davison

Chairman for UKIP Sittingbourne & Sheppey

As well as this, in this weeks paper, both Stephen Trafford and Richard Palmer had letters printed in regards to Swale Borough council and parking policies.

Dear Sir / Madam,

I am writing in regards to the mad parking restrictions that have been seen over the past few weeks, which do not seem to involve common sense. First, it was seen in an article in this paper, ‘It’s just another reason not to shop in our town’ (SNE 4th April), the ridiculous situation of Gary Johnson, who was given a parking ticket despite the fact that the ticket machine did not work and a note had been left on his windscreen to this effect. He was right to say that such happenings and rigid rules further discourages people to shop in our High Street, rather, it pushes them out to the out of town shopping centres. Our small businesses and High Street shops are the ones who are suffering.

I regularly use West Street News, who I know are suffering themselves due to Swale’s parking enforcement, in which common sense is not employed. The staff have clearly expressed their annoyance over the fact that a large percentage of their custom, which comes from passing trade, are being discouraged to shop or in many instances forcefully turned away from the shop by Traffic Wardens. Many customers pull to the right hand side of West Street in order to pop in and buy a Newspaper and a drink. However, the single yellow line outside, which was not there when the shop owner took on what is now West Street News, seems to be severely reducing their trade. The council needs to do something to help the businesses on West Street survive.

It is my feeling and that of Swale UKIP that common sense needs to be exercised here. Parking is difficult, discouraged, and the parking meters, which as we have seen are often out of order, has cost the council the colossal sum of £111,280. This is a ridiculously high figure. Swale UKIP have a full parking and traffic proposal contained in our local manifesto, as published on our SWALEUKIP blog, and we feel that policies such as free car parking in our town centres are needed in order that small businesses may be helped in this difficult time, and people encouraged to shop in our town. Our High Street is suffering, LETS USE SOME GOOD BUSINESS SENSE AND HELP OUR LOCAL SHOPS.

Regards,
Stephen Trafford,
St Michael’s UKIP representative.

Dear Editor

RE: Sittingbourne News Extra 4 April-Page 7

I have sympathy with Gary Johnson and feel that parking charges in Swales town centres are too high and restrict trade within the towns. He has a point about business being affected. I try to use shops in Sittingbourne High Street and have done so for over 25 years but find it increasingly difficult with the charges that Swale Council charge. Gary has hit the nail on the head that trade/shops in Sittingbourne is being hit. The comments made by Swales Councils spokesperson shows that the council has no regard for business and comments like the wardens are only carrying out parking restrictions which while correct are restrictions introduced and controlled by our elected officials on Swale Council. There should be free parking or at least for 4 hours to increase trade and support our town centres. Business in many High Streets seem to be hit all the time with high rates and customers being charged for parking which drives customers away to out of town stores run by multi national companies.

I notice Swale House has free parking for staff/councillors parking. This free parking is paid for by the shops, businesses and council tax payers of Swale while these same councillors insist on charging us for parking in the town. UKIP in Swale has been keen to highlight the need for supporting the High Streets and free parking is one of many solutions offered by UKIP which many seem to support. Let’s hope UKIP have the opportunity to bring this policy in to benefit our town centres trade.

It seems that car drivers are an easy target for raising revenue by central and local Governments.

Kind regards

Richard

Kemsley By Election Result

Despite losing 16.5% of the vote last Thursday, the Conservative Party did manage to hold on to their 2nd councillor in Kemsley. The Labour Party's vote went down by 0.5%despite a huge effort from them, with over 20 people out campaigning most weekends. UKIP meanwhile had a very successful day, increasing our vote by over 10% and securing 24.5% of the vote and being only 105 votes away from the winners in a very close third place. This bodes well four our local development and demonstrates that the people of Swale are becoming increasingly fed up with the fact that Swale Borough Council are just not listening to the concerns of local people, whether it be over the housing madness, litter or crime. In UKIP people are findindg a credible alternative full of hard wroking people who do what they say and who are independent voices for their local communities. It should be noted that the Lib Dems also did quite well increasing their vote by 6.6%, although they still finshed in fourth place. The full result was as follows:

Mike Whiting (Conservative) - 384 - 33.7% (-16.6%)
Richard Raycraft (Labour) - 312 - 27.3% (-0.5%)
Derek Carnell (UKIP) - 279 - 24.5% (+10.5%)
Berick Tomes (Liberal Democrat) - 166 - 14.5% (+6.6%)
Turnout: 23.2%

The turnout was dissapointingly low considering the effort that has been put in by all four parties.

Kemsley By-Election

Following the sad death of Conservative councillor, Brenda Simpson last year, a by-election has been called in the ward of Kemsley for the 8th March. The candidates have now been confirmed and are as follows:

Derek Carnell - UKIP
Richard Raycraft - Labour
Berick Tomes - Lib Dem
Mike Whiting - Conservative

UKIP have an excellent candidate in Derek Carnell, who defected to us from the Conservativ Party last year saying,'UKIP's committment to local people and putting people back at the top of the Council's agenda is exactly what local politics needs in Swale. The Conservative's are pushing through crippling cuts that will destroy the very fabric of our society. And yet they can afford to lend £8 Billion to Ireland, pay a fortune to remain in the EU, and are spending untold millions every day in bombing Libya. They have lost sight of the priorities of the People, and are making ideologically motivated cuts using the economy as an exscuse. This is totally unforgiveable.'

Derek is a local resdient and campaigner, being a Kemsley primary school governor and is on the committee of the Kemsley Active Residents association. He now wishes to become further involved in the community by serving local people as their councillor, which as the campiagn moves on, is seeming ever more likeley. Only Derek and the Lib Dem candidate live in the ward and we are trying our hardest to ensure that Derek becomes Kemsley's next councillor as we know what a hard-working, local councilllor he would be.

The campaign is already in full force, with all parties having started both leafletting and canvassing. UKIP has already delivered a least two leaflets (one being a survey for local people) to every house and we are in the process of knocking on doors,passing on the UKIP message and finding out your concerns. Please, if you feel passionately about making politics work for the people once more, do come and help us get an alternative candidate elected, who would not have to toe a party line but could be an independent voice for the people of Kemsley. If you are interested in helping contact the campaign co-ordinator Mike Baldock at, cllrmikebaldock@yahoo.co.uk

In 2011 UKIP came 3rd with 14% of the vote.

Good luck Derek!