MORE than 3,500 people have registered their views on plans to build a huge road-rail interchange on the outskirts of the county town.

Although planning officers are still working their way through the huge pile of responses, the early indications are that barely a handful of the letters and emails sent to Maidstone council are in support of the Kent International Gateway project.

Among the responses were contributions from 21 parish councils, all opposed to the scheme.

Representatives of the StopKIG campaign team, formed by hundreds of residents in the Bearsted and Thurnham area, called at the council offices in Tonbridge Road, Maidstone, on Tuesday to hand in their response directly to senior planning officer, Rob Jarman, who has the task of preparing the council’s response to the application.

Although the initial deadline for the receipt of objections has passed, the council has made it clear that it will continue to accept any responses it receives up until the point the application is determined, probably in February.

StopKIG spokesman, Valerie Springett, urged the public to take the opportunity of letting the council know how they felt about the scheme.

“It’s not too late,” she said. “Anyone who hasn’t written already, should take a few minutes to do so at the first opportunity.

“If this application were approved, it would affect everybody in the town, not just the residents of Bearsted and Thurnham.”

Objectors include the Green Party’s MEP for the South East, Dr Caroline Lucas.

“The Gateway to gloom” was how Dr Lucas labelled the plans.

She said: “The project will harm rural life, increase traffic congestion and inflict considerable environmental damage.”

In her submission to Maidstone council, she labelled the proposal “inappropriate” and “environmentally irresponsible”.

The party’s Maidstone branch transport spokesman, Ian McDonald, said: “It’s incredible that the developers could have chosen this location for their freight transshipment site.

“They must have realised that it would be outstandingly provocative.”

Mr McDonald, of Douglas Road, Maidstone, said: “We believe that the site may have been chosen to serve as a stacking area for lorries waiting clearance of cross-Channel routes arising from obstruction, accidents, industrial actions, or severe weather conditions, and that it may also become a rest area for lorries and drivers with no load transshipment taking place at all.”