Work on further changes to the Chatham road system, including the demolition of the flyover, has begun.  There is a temporary bus and taxi route to the High Street, but the new road for public transport, which will follow the route of the flyover, won’t be constructed until the end of 2009 at the earliest.

There is no doubt that this will cause immense problems in Chatham.  The first question is whether this work should be going ahead, and given the 10000-signature petition opposing it, the current economic downturn and the track record of the current administration it is very doubtful.

Chatham, including the Pentagon Centre, has an increasing number of empty shops, and far fewer big stores than there were five years ago.  The changes to the road system will make Chatham increasingly unreachable and unattractive; which may well take years to recover from as shoppers go elsewhere. 
The current Conservative administration does not have a good record on economic regeneration.  They have spent well over £1 million on their Innovation Centre, which largely remains empty and had their overarching plan for Medway, the Local Development Framework, rejected on the grounds that it lacked any strategy for employment.  The delays and re-writes of the framework has also cost Council taxpayers well over £1 million.

However, as the Tories insist on pushing ahead with the road changes, have they have done enough to mitigate the significant effects of the traffic problems. 

All we’ve heard from the Tories is that ‘you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs’.  This is a totally inappropriate response.  It will certainly be unacceptable to residents who lose their businesses through lack of customers; when it takes an extra hour to get to work, or when people are forced to travel to shop outside of the towns as Chatham becomes inaccessible.

The fact that the Tories are inflicting this on Medway’s residents is bad enough, but the lack of effort to mitigate the impact on local people at this difficult time is unforgivable.