Kent County Council (KCC) has been slated for failing to send highways officers to answer questions from the public on a road closure deemed “a risk to school children”.

A number of Maidstone residents attended a meeting of the KCC and Maidstone council Joint Transportation Board to demand the re-opening of Cranborne Avenue when the "temporary” closure notice expires in September.

But the board's chairman, borough councillor Claudine Russell (Con) had to apologise to them, saying there were no KCC highways officers present.

Cllr Russell said: ”I am as disappointed by this as you are.

“The date for the meeting was set out well in advance. I personally emailed the leader of Kent County Council when I heard there were to be no officers present, but they are still not here.”

Some residents chose to ask their questions anyway, while others will wait for the next board meeting in October. There were told they could not do both.

In March 2022, KCC closed the junction of Cranborne Avenue with Loose Road. It had previously formed one arm of the four-pronged Wheatsheaf Junction, controlled by traffic lights.

Officers predicted closing Cranborne Avenue would save 17 seconds on the average journey time.

KCC used an experimental traffic order to close the road, which runs out on September 24, saying at the time it would assess the results before making a final decision.

Residents say any potential saving at the Wheatsheaf has been offset by increased traffic along Marion Crescent and Plains Avenue, which is now the way that traffic from Shepway must join Loose Road to head into the town centre.

Vincent Flynn told the board: "There is a risk to the safety of residents who now have to exit from Plains Avenue and cross four lanes of traffic.

“There has been no demonstratable improvement at the Wheatsheaf, but the closure has negatively impacted all the surrounding roads. Will the council now re-open Cranborne Avenue?”

Cllr Russell had to apologise again, saying that even though KCC had known of his question in advance, they had not supplied any response. Something she described as "unacceptable”.

Natalie White told the meeting the closure had simply diverted traffic along Plains Avenue.

She said: “I have seen many accidents happen at this junction. It has become highly dangerous with a high chance of school children being knocked down by speeding cars.”

Jeremy Day said: “We are very unhappy about the negative effects of the closure. The closure was supposed to be for a six-month trial period, but it is now almost a year since the trial was supposed to finish. Why has there been such a long delay in publishing the results of the study?” Again there was no KCC response.

Andrew Hammersely pointed out that the closure had increased traffic along the designated cycle route through Shepway, which was Marion Crescent and Plains Avenue, which he described as "crazy”.

Saying that exiting from Plains Avenue was now a “frightening prospect,” he admitted that he visited the town centre less often now, and asked: “If others think like me, will there be a negative effect on businesses in the town centre?”

Cllr Maureen Cleator (Lab) said the closure had “made life miserable.”

She added: “We know KCC has already decided to keep the closure because they’ve stuck two big no entry signs there – they wouldn’t have put those up for a temporary measure.”

Cllr Paul Harper (Fant and Oakwood Independents) said the failure of KCC officers to show up was “making a mockery of democracy.”

He said: “Local people are not being allowed an answer to a simple question.”

All the councillors – both borough and county – condemned the lack of KCC officer presence.

Cllr Brian Clarke (Lib Dem ) said it “brought shame on both administrations."

Even Sir Paul Carter (Con), the former long-time leader of KCC, now a backbencher, said: “I’m extremely disappointed that there aren’t any KCC officers here tonight.”

Cllr Clive English (Lib Dem) said that without them, the evening was “a waste of everyone’s time.”

Parish Cllr Peter Couling, representing the Maidstone branch of the Kent Association of Local Councils, who was attending his first meeting, said: “It seems to me that joint responsibility means no responsibility.”

He suggested Maidstone declare a unilateral declaration of independence, and look after its own roads.

In a unanimous vote, councillors instructed the chairman to write a strongly worded letter to the leader and to the chief executive of KCC, demanding officer attendance at the next meeting in October.

But the public left still not knowing what will happen to Cranborne Avenue when the closure order expires in September.

However, Kentonline did report on an earlier meeting of the Joint Transportation Board a year ago, held just six months after the closure, when KCC has just completed a public consultation. Of 96 responses, 23 were in favour of closure and 73 against.

Then the KCC Highways project manager Barry Stiff had said: “It has always been our intention that the closure is a permanent feature of our junction improvement.”

He said that the consultation responses would be assessed, but only with a view to seeing if there was something to be done to mitigate the adverse local effects.

Mr Stiff added: “From the very original consultation on our Keep Maidstone Moving policy, the idea has always been to close Cranborne Avenue. That has always been the intention and it should come as no secret or surprise to anyone.”

“We were never going to re-open the road.”