Swale Borough Council has officially backed the Kent Science Park proposed route for the Southern Relief Road
10 Oct 2011
Even though many Councillor’s present at the LDF panel meeting last Thursday had no prior knowledge or involvement in the decision making process, it appears that someone in the Council had agreed to limit the scope of the traffic model to four alternative routes all of which were drawn up by the Kent Science Park themselves. After all the years of rhetoric from Swale Borough Council about keeping all options open, it is deeply disappointing that behind closed doors democracy and localism were neatly brushed to one side in a desperate bid to retain the Kent Science Park within the Core Strategy.
However the results were far from convincing and may well yet prove to be the undoing of the Kent Science Park’s hideous expansion plans. One thing is now clear the Southern Relief Road is inextricably linked to the Science Parks future but not Swale’s. The benefits of the Southern Relief Road for Swale as a whole are minuscule and the very purposes for its creation are not solved by its construction.
Whether we build a Southern Relief Road or not, we still have to find solutions for the M2 Junction 5 and the consequences of connecting the Northern Relief Road to the A2, neither of which is resolved.
The Southern Relief Road was borne from political desire and has ultimately proven a spectacular failure, but will those politicians now have the good grace to back down and start on a course to find a real solution to the boroughs problems.
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