A member of the Highways England team working on lorry park plans has been forced to apologise after accidentally sending a derogatory email about a villager.

Stanford parish councillor Pete Maddox received the message from Paul Kelly, an external consultant employed by Highways England to engage with residents over the M20 lorry park designs.

The email, which has been seen by the Express, sees Mr Kelly writing to a colleague describing Cllr Maddox as “an unpleasant character” who “we should try to satisfy”.

Campaigners from SOS Kent – the protest group fighting the lorry park proposals at Stanford off Junction 11 of the M20 – this week said it was worrying this was the attitude shown by Highways England toward residents and called into question the government-owned company’s integrity and professionalism.

Cllr Maddox, whose house in Stanford North includes the windmill opposite the lorry park site, told the Express: “I’ve got to give him his due. He phoned me and apologised and said he shouldn’t have written it.”

He believes the comment stems from a previous conversation with a member of Highways England staff.

“When we’ve had our one-to-one with them, I was asking about compensation so I could give information to residents.

“When you push them for information, they just tell you what you want to hear.”

It comes as Highways England launched its first wave of public consultations throughout east Kent in Sellindge on Friday.

SOS Kent members were lobbying outside the exhibition, which saw the first designs for the lorry park go on display.

But Cllr Maddox says he has concerns over several design aspects, which he says he has not been able to get adequate answers to. They include whether an area of water would be a retention pond or wildlife lake, tree height and type and fence height.

“They don’t know. We’re being led down the garden path about this is what it could look like but I said it might not be,” he added.

“When you talk to them you get the feeling they will sit you down and tell you everything you want to hear, and the minute you say that’s not right or question, you get called an ‘unpleasant character’ or ‘you people’ or ‘undesirable’ and ‘you shouldn’t be asking this, who are you?’

“We’re being ignored and no one is paying attention to anything we’ve got to say.”

A Highways England spokesperson said: “We apologise unreservedly to Cllr Maddox on behalf of our contractor.

"Further to a telephone apology, Highways England staff apologised to him in person when he visited our event on Friday, and were able to speak with him in detail about our plans for the lorry area.

"Highways England have reiterated to all its contractors the importance it places on respect for our stakeholders and good customer service.”