Kent County Council will spend £2.5m on a junction improvement scheme on a key route into Maidstone which it knows will be returned to over-capacity almost as soon as it is built.

Back in 2018, highways engineers came up with a scheme to improve the junction of the A274 Sutton Road with Willington Street and Wallis Avenue that would have provided a "considerable capacity benefit" right up to 2031, the end of the time span for Maidstone's existing Local Plan, and beyond.

But it was rejected by members of the Joint Transportation Board (JTB), which includes both county and borough councillors, because it would have involved the loss of a line of cherry trees near Bell Meadow and a considerable expansion into grass verge to provide extra carriageways.

Highways officers were asked to go away and come back with a less intrusive scheme.

The new proposal was presented to the JTB this month. It involves moving the position of bus stops, compulsorily purchasing land in Willington Street to expand the width of the road at the junction, and providing dedicated left-turn lanes on Sutton Road.

But chief project engineer Russell Boorman warned that the scheme "provided very little benefit" and the junction would again be at over-capacity by 2021.

Considering a full design has yet to be worked out, and there was the potentially contentious need to purchase private land, many doubted whether the scheme could even be implemented much before 2021.

Cllr Brian Clark (Lib Dem) said: "There is significant pressure on the A274 corridor and there are still more new homes to be built. It is absolute folly to consider a scheme that by the time it is delivered will already be beyond capacity."

Cllr Ian Chittenden (Lib Dem) submitted a motion that the board re-instate the larger scheme that had been rejected in 2018, though he admitted it would be unpopular with the residents who last year had objected to the loss of the cherry trees.

Cllr Chittenden said: “I cannot accept that an estimated £2.5m, is good value for money for a scheme which will be at full capacity by 2021, around the same time as the works will have been completed. Officers were given a brief to find alternative designs at the site and this falls very far short of the original plan. The old scheme with minor amendments would clearly provide better use of public money ”

Cllr David Burton (Con) agreed saying the new proposal would "at best, improve things for a year or two, then we are back to where we are now."

But Cllr Paul Carter (Con), the leader of Kent County Council, dismissed the objections to the new scheme as "a lot of tosh from the Liberal Democrats."

County Councillor Gary Cooke (Con) spoke strongly in favour of the new proposal. He described the cherry trees as "a vista that people see coming into Maidstone that is incredibly attractive " and should be preserved.

Cllr Chittenden's motion was defeated by just one vote.

The voting split almost on party lines, with Liberal Democrat members voting for a return to the previous plan, and Tories to wanting to stay with the new one.The only exception was the board's Conservative chairman Cllr Burton, who also voted for a return to the original plan.

The money to pay for the junction will come from Section 106 payments made by the developers of new estates along Sutton Road. The money is supposed to offset any additional congestion caused by traffic from the new homes.

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