Maidstone Green Party is calling for a radical overhaul of transport policies across Kent. As an issue close to the hearts of Kent residents, transport affects everyone and the continued house building in Kent and the shifting of hospital services to Pembury will make this problem worse. Added to this, Sustrans, the national cycling charity, recently stated that Maidstone has some of the lowest level of cycle lanes in the county and our current councillors have publically stated their opposition to cycle lanes!

The Greens are calling for KCC and Maidstone Borough to jointly finance new railway stations in expanding urban areas through community partnerships, and increase substantially financial support for evening and weekend bus services, and make fares low and affordable. Instead of supporting more destructive new road building, KCC should play its part in meeting our Kyoto pollution and carbon dioxide emission targets, and encourage increased rail and bus usage to keep traffic levels, and pollution, down. The council has given a commitment to become 'carbon neutral' by 2020, and it needs to ensure that its policies move the rest of Maidstone in this dirction too.

We continue to oppose the Maidstone Southern relief road plan and the Leeds-Langley by-pass schemes as they will not provide a solution to local transport problems, and are pressing for more traffic calming, lorry bans on many more roads, and better bus and train services.

The Greens have slammed the misplaced investment into the 'traffic management' system in Maidstone. This system has produced no discernable reduction in traffic jams in the town, and the money would have been better spent on improvements to public transport.

Our proposed solution is to make public transport attractive, efficient and affordable and to promote increases in teleworking. For shorter journeys, walking and cycling is the best option, but our roads must be safe and designed for people in preference to cars.