Our readers from across the county give their weekly take on the biggest issues impacting Kent and beyond.

Some letters refer to past correspondence which can be found by clicking here. Join the debate by emailing letters@thekmgroup.co.uk

20mph speed limit should be extended

I have plenty of sympathy for the British motorist who often has to contend with hidden craters in the road surface, poor traffic information and the all too frequent arterial jams.

However, having recently spent ten days in Normandy, I have no sympathy for politicians who bleat at the prospect of 20mph speed limits.

The economy of France is not collapsing because it requires people to slow to 30kmh (18mph) on stretches of road likely to be shared with pedestrians. Far from it, the town centres of some fairly remote places are thriving there and the shops are largely fully tenanted. I didn't observe any 'bunching' either. The traffic slows naturally because you come to a significant and well-announced ramp (not a bump) at the start and finish of the zone. It just goes into a different pace for the duration of the zone with motorists understanding that their priorities are going to be different for a short while.

What our politicians are failing to point out is that 20mph makes for a more peaceful urban environment. It is simply more enjoyable to walk around a town which isn't being snarled up by aggressive motorists trying to shave a minute or so off their journey. If it is more enjoyable to walk, then it is more enjoyable to shop and to linger. Now that has a very powerful economic benefit.

I hear politicians conflating all these issues saying they are 'on the side of the motorist' as if there need be a conflict.

At the moment everyone gets a bad deal. We should remember that motorists are also cyclists and pedestrians. It isn't a battle so there are no sides.

I'd like to see far better maintained (or just maintained!) roads and 21st century up-to-date traffic information as well as plenty of twenty in our beleaguered town centres and school drop off routes. We can be on the side of everyone.

Charles Bain Smith

Easy way to control dangerous dogs

There has been much discussion recently about the control of dangerous dogs.

The Prime Minister has begun to talk the talk but no concrete thoughts have been presented or even a sensible timeframe. Rather like the smoking controls it is all in the air and one can see that it will (like the migrant problem) be challenged and challenged by those who either have a political axe to grind or have conflicting interests.

However, the problem with dogs could be easily controlled by the reintroduction of licensing.

This would entail the compulsory registration and chipping of all dogs and the declaration of the breed and other required details. Failure to do so would be an offence and offenders would be heavily fined.

This would to a great extent help to control the dangerous breeds which seem so popular these days. If one of these breeds is deliberately misidentified then the dog would be confiscated and the owner punished severely or receive a custodial sentence.

This may seem drastic but we have a serious problem in this country and deaths from dog attacks are becoming very common.

Although not classed as dangerous breeds, how often does one see dogs being aggressive, either to each other or the people passing?

This has also implications in the countryside, which I know too well having been brought up on a farm.

The government really has only to use common sense and ignore the noise which, if they are brave enough, will not be heard.

I am not a great lover of the Welsh government but their 20mph rule is just pure common sense and the same can be said of the New Zealand smoking initiative.

Like the dog licensing suggestion, these will ensure that our lives are made safer. It’s not rocket science, is it?

William Miller

Tutoring is main problem with Kent Test

Lauren Abbott’s column makes a very pertinent case about the Kent Test and I couldn’t agree more with her statement.

But I would like to introduce tutoring into the argument. Delaying the Kent Test would not help those unable to afford tutoring to help their children.

Following Covid, children had to go back into school and take the Kent Test. What chance did those children have whose parents couldn’t afford tutoring during Covid and over the holidays? It essentially eliminates the competition and increases the chance of those children privileged enough to have tutoring being accepted into the grammar schools.

In my opinion the grammar school system is essentially unfair and divisive with many talented children, whose parents cannot afford tutoring, being eliminated.

I agree that the Kent Test, while it exists, should be taken at the end of Year 5 but if this government really believes in levelling up, grammar schools would be banned and all children would have equal opportunity to succeed.

Mike Turner

Urgent shift needed to green transport

I wonder how many of your readers submitted the survey for KCC’s consultation on local transport, or even read Emerging Local Transport Plan: Turning the Curve towards Net Zero, still available on the letstalk.kent.gov.uk website.

An uncomfortable truth is stated there: “Our forecasts suggest that the rate of fall in carbon from transport activity on our managed road network will be too slow to fit with our estimate of Kent’s share of the national carbon budget unless the rate of emissions reductions increases”.

The problem is that the more they improve the roads, the more vehicle trips are made: “As it becomes easier to make journeys to different destinations, because the time it takes falls, demand to travel increases”

It is forecast that traffic emissions for the 2019-2027 period, that is NOW, are falling by only 9% when a fall of 30% for Kent is required to meet the 2050 net-zero target. So Kent is failing to turn the curve. The optimistic notion that e-cars can solve the problem is undercut by the fact that these vehicles still emit the small particulants that cause asthma and heart attacks.

Some solutions: shift more freight to rail? Better and more regular buses?

Charlotte Mbali

PM is listening to climate change deniers

In the sort of stirring novels of empire and derring do in World War Two, where Carruthers and Strangely Brown save the day, armed only with a cricket bat and a solar topee, the watchwords are perseverance and determination. However, what we find with our government is faintheartedness and short termism. Arguably, the campaign for the next general election has already started, when premier Sunak rowed back on previous undertakings on climate change.

Sunak is a small government man and sees tax cuts and minimal public services as the way forward. The problem with that objective is that it is not supported by voters in general and especially his key electors, at least in regards to the triple lock pension system, and the NHS.

Mr Sunak is hemmed in, with a divided party and his five pledges, on jobs, the economy, inflation, stopping the boats and reducing the national debt not punching through into public consciousness.

It appears that he has taken the decision to meddle with measures that were designed to significantly cut carbon consumption. The reasoning given to justify this stop-go policy is ostensibly the cost of living crisis engineered by the stupidity and madness of last autumn's mini-budget, which increased interest rates and put the economy into a spiral of decline. Homeowners, tenants and businesses are feeling the pinch but is cutting energy efficiency and reducing overall motoring costs the right way for prosperity and the planet?

The sad thing about the new Sunak green policies is that there is more help for homeowners to transition to a more efficient greener future but the good news is being lost by the taint of climate change denial and the knocking over of non-existent 'green' policies.

Rishi Sunak is an accountant and finance is his metier, so why does he not grasp the opportunities for the country and the public by holding firmly to the Mission Zero plan , as advocated by his own climate change advisor, Chris Skidmore MP? Mission zero, explains quite clearly, how the nation can throw off years of slow growth, poor productivity and limbo economics.

Mr Sunak, howevers seems to prefer to listen to the climate change deniers in his midst and the siren voices of misinformation being spread by some parts of the press and social media. This is a risky strategy that appears to be driven by reactionaries within the Tory party membership, but may not be attractive to Tory voters, or voters in general.

Richard Styles

Stricter planning controls needed over sewage

It is great news that the House of Lords has rejected the government’s proposal to weaken environmental protection by repealing the nutrient neutrality requirement for major developments.

Unfortunately, this will not make an iota of difference since Local Planning Authorities (LPA) routinely ignore, or fail to enforce, requirements intended to protect the environment. Consequently, the prospects for our streams, rivers and beaches continue to be dismal.

Planning permission is granted without any clear plans for dealing with foul sewage, even when developers candidly admit they do not know how the foul sewage will be managed. The standard planning application form addresses the management of foul sewage but encourages a ‘don’t know’ response. The LPA, despite not knowing how the foul sewage will be managed, will then rule that there is no need for any environmental impact assessment.

The LPA will cover itself with a pre-condition, attached to the planning permission, requiring plans for managing the foul sewage to be approved before starting the development. However, developments are allowed to start and wildlife habitats are destroyed before all pre-conditions have been met. The LPA fails to take enforcement action and the development becomes a ‘fait accompli’.

Derek Wisdom

Labour does not represent working class people

Ralph A Tebbutt accuses me of drawing distorted conclusions from history but in reality he seems to know very little of the latter.

He praises socialism, and indeed, in the 1950s and 1960s I supported the Labour party, as it was recognisably in the line of those who had fought for the working class, of which my family was a member.

It once stood for the ordinary worker, while at the same time being realistic about the world, patriotically supporting strong defences and rejecting wholeheartedly the idea of subsuming this nation into some supranational entity such as the EU. Attlee and Ernest Bevin worked together on the decision to produce a British atomic bomb despite intense opposition from pro-Soviet elements of the Labour Party, groups that Bevin detested. The latter was a true socialist, representing ordinary people, never being seduced by the middle class concerns which now dominate the party.

Today the party is run by those who put, inter alia, sexual and racial issues far above the desire to actually help the working class, having been taken over by metropolitan middle class representatives who regard the concerns of those in the old industrial areas as of little importance. Their deranged support for net zero policies, which would hit the working class the hardest, are a case in point. Indeed, if Rishi Sunak actually sticks to his guns for once, and rolls back the green tide, it could be an issue which keeps the Labour party out of power.

This corruption of socialism happened in many countries, and a great deal of the blame can be attributed to Lenin, who, born into the upper middle class, and arrogantly seeking personal power, distorted the policies which would have given the people a better life, promoting the kind of ideological approach which led to 75 years of totalitarian dictatorship. Socialist governments based on that model are always a disaster for the people. The manner in which socialism has been practised abroad has not led to the universal freedom that Mr Tebbutt desires, but to many despotic regimes, which are also economically incompetent.

Colin Bullen