by Alan Smith

ajsmith@thekmgroup.co.uk

A series of cutbacks that will save the borough on average £2,650 a year have been branded an attack on the civic traditions of Maidstone.
The church service before the annual Mayor-making ceremony is to be abolished and expenditure on the Mayor’s garden party cut, with fewer guests and reduced catering.
The annual Court of Survey cruise, in which the Mayor exercises his historic right to count the swans on the River Medway, will now be held once every two years.
But Cllr Mike Fitzgerald (Ind) said that far from reducing the cruise, more should be made of it as Maidstone is the UK’s only town where swans belong to the borough rather than The Queen.
He said: “This should be developed to provide a much bigger visitor attraction and could become an income-generating day.”
Cllr Fran Wilson, leader of the Liberal Democrat group, added: “The rationale for most of the savings seems to be that 'other boroughs don’t do it, but it is our civic events that singularise Maidstone out as the County Town.”