Congestion at a key bottle-neck in a busy town centre could easily be solved, it has been claimed.

Ed Rust, from Kingfisher Meadow in Maidstone is one of the hundreds of residents who frequently get caught in the log-jam that is created as traffic tries to leave Lockmeadow and join The Broadway.

He said: "Luckily I work from home much of the time now, but if I do need to go out there's always a queue.

"There have been times at the weekend when I've got as far as the gate, seen the snarled-up traffic, and simply not bothered.

"We residents are effectively trapped here at times and if you've made an appointment, you have to ring and cancel."

Kent County Council (KCC) has plans to solve the problem, which has been aggravated by drive-thru customers trying to reach or leave the McDonalds in Hart Street.

The highways authority is to create a roundabout at the far junction of Hart Street and Barker Road, and make all traffic go one-way past the back of B&Q to reach McDonalds.

But that scheme, that has yet to be implemented eight years after McDonalds opened, has been heavily criticised by Ali El-Hajj, the owner of the McDonalds franchise, and by Gina Michaelas, the owner of Marino's fish bar opposite, who say it is completely the reverse of what is needed.

They say the problem is that their customers can't get out of Hart Street into the line of queueing cars in Barker Road. They want the one-way system to go the other way around.

Mr Rust however says the solution is much easier – and cheaper.

He said: "The phasing of the traffic lights at the junction just do not let enough vehicles out. At best it's around 11 cars, but the timing is reduced for us during peak periods and sometimes only four or five cars can get out."

Mr Rust, who has lived off Hart Street since 2016, said KCC had taken no account of the extra traffic now trying to exit Barker Road, not just from McDonalds, but from the many new flats built along Hart Street and from events at the Lockmeadow entertainment complex.

He wrote to both KCC highways and his local county councillor, Tom Cannon (Con), saying: "The lights going green for such a short period of time is significantly contributing to the backlog and queue of traffic.

"You need to get an engineer to those lights asap and have them reprogrammed.

"The beauty of this solution is that it will be cheap and could be done quickly. You could get a significant improvement done within a week, if you get organised."

Cllr Cannon agreed the current situation was "inadequate."

He said: "We ideally need to open access up and out through Maidstone West Station and get two lanes of traffic into the area as well, to get queueing traffic off the bridge and the one-way system.

"I'm happy to explore the traffic light phasing with KCC staff.

"However, the obvious consequence of letting more cars out of Barker Road is that the traffic will build even more around the one way system and stop the flow on that system.

"The changes to two lanes in and opening up Maidstone West are in my view the best long term option, but there are cost implications and we would need to get Southeastern to agree."

Kent Highways said: "There were a number of different options which were explored, and adjusting the signal timings at the Barker Road/Broadway junction was one of the first areas investigated.

"After modelling the junction in full using the survey data and traffic counts, we determined that there was no way to increase the amount of green phase on the Barker Road arm without having a detrimental effect on the wider Maidstone gyratory."

The spokesman said the KCC's recommendation had been to instal a substantial junction-widening scheme to allow additional lanes at the traffic-light junction, but the Maidstone Joint Transportation Board (consisting of local borough and county councillors) had wanted to press ahead with the current smaller scheme rather than wait for funding to become available.

The one-way scheme would be introduced for a trial period of 18 months, and if it was found that it did not improve the situation, it could be removed or adjusted.

There is an online consultation page where motorists and residents can leave their views.

Mr Rust said: "So they are having a trial period for the one-way system but refuse to change the phasing of the lights based on 'modelling' without trailing it.

"People are sick and tired of politicians in this country being so slow to act and get things done,"