A council leader has defended his radical proposal to divide Canterbury into five different zones after it was criticised by Rod Liddle.

In an opinion piece in The Spectator, the controversial columnist described Cllr Ben Fitter-Harding's plans as "a kind of fascistic restriction" on the daily lives of residents.

In the column titled "The march of the local council dictators", Mr Liddle says the "extravagant" proposals will "make local people's lives a misery".

However, Cllr Fitter-Harding (Con) has hit back at the piece, branding it "inaccurate" and accusing Mr Liddle of singling him out as a gay man.

Council bosses have come in for a deluge of criticism since revealing their vision to ease congestion, which would see motorists fined for driving between new so-called 'neighbourhoods'.

The authority believes its proposal - included in its draft Local Plan for 2045 - will be the solution to combating continual rush-hour congestion in Canterbury.

Under the system, drivers would be unable to make simple journeys across the city as they would be banned from moving between the proposed neighbourhoods.

They will instead have to drive out of their zone and onto a new bypass - essentially a much larger outer ring-road - before re-entering their chosen neighbourhood.

In Mr Liddle's piece, he starts by criticising plans by Keir Starmer's Labour Party to introduce a new democratic assembly of nations and regions to replace the Lords.

"If I were PM, I'd embrace the House of Lords and abolish the House of Commons, raise the voting age to 25, introduce a property-owning qualification and hold general elections once every 10 years, if that," he wrote in The Spectator earlier this month.

"You may quibble with my proposals but surely the one thing that we can all agree upon is that we want much, much less power devolved to locally elected bodies."

He says the authorities should be allowed to empty bins and "that's about it", but claims they do not do that "efficiently".

Mr Liddle added: "Decentralisation is all very laudable in theory - until you see up close the kind of deranged b******s who will be wielding these new powers.

"You may think I am overstating the case a little, but if so have a look at Canterbury City Council, an authority from whose jurisdiction I recently mercifully escaped.

"The leader of the council is Ben Fitter-Harding, who lives in the Boughton area with his husband, Jonathan, and runs a hipster hotel in the city centre.

"Ben recently unveiled the council's extravagant plans to make local people's lives a misery."

He goes on to describe the plans, which will see short, direct journeys across the city - whether to supermarkets, retail parks or GP surgeries - prohibited in a bid to encourage residents to walk, cycle or use public transport.

"In other words - as opposition parties have all pointed out - aside from being a kind of fascistic restriction on the daily lives of the local people, it will also vastly increase journey times and thus emissions," Mr Liddle said.

"All because Mr Fitter-Harding thinks he is charged with saving the planet rather than running the local council.

"Incidentally, I ought to point out that Ben is a Conservative, bless him."

Cllr Fitter-Harding says he will continue to talk about challenges the district faces and potential solutions, "even when it draws fire from less savoury characters".

"My approach to leadership has been highly consultative, with no clearer example than starting the discussion now about how we deal with Canterbury's congestion in the next 15 to 20 years," he said.

"Planning for the big changes and sharing a vision is the very opposite of a dictatorship.

"Those in leadership positions owe it to us all to tackle the big, long-term problems, even when they know that the options may not be popular.

"They owe it to us all to give us time to consider these options and improve them or even come up with new ideas entirely."

He continued: "Mr Liddle's piece is little more than putting two and two together and making 2045, the year he should have noticed that we're actually talking about here in Canterbury - not the next couple of years as in Oxford.

"Add in his unusual decision to single me out as a gay man and then reference one of my businesses in a way that paints a picture of a certain lifestyle.

"I think we can safely say that not only is Mr Liddle's article inaccurate and irrelevant but that it also offers nothing to the people of Canterbury district or the wider debate of how we plan for the future of our cities, towns and villages across the country.

"I'll continue to talk about the challenges that we face and the ideas for tackling them - even when it draws fire from less savoury characters.

"No one should be allowed to shut down the debate or spread misinformation, and I intend to guard against that - no matter how personal or underhand the attacks."

In 2019, Mr Liddle was branded a misogynist for mocking a Kent MP for opening up about her domestic abuse ordeal.

He labelled Canterbury's Labour member the "sobbing and oppressed Rosie '#MeToo' Duffield" in a piece for The Spectator.

Then he described some people in Thanet as "virus-addled plebs" after Kent was placed in Tier 3 in the coronavirus pandemic.

This meant people couldn't mix with other households indoors, or in private and pub gardens.