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

Don’t reduce our cars to tractor speeds

Rishi Sunak declares he wants to be a “friend of the motorist” and around 450,000 people have signed the petition opposing the 30mph downgrade of speed limits to 20mph in Wales.

Also, the Conservative leader of the Welsh Parliament (Senedd) condemned this “blanket policy” reduction by the Welsh Labour Party.

But if we look at very Conservative KCC, are they doing the same thing, but in a more stealthy and dishonest way?

After all, there are now many miles of Kent roads downgraded to 20mph ‘farm tractor’ speeds!

Also how many ‘A’ and ‘B’ class rural roads (including dual carriageways) are now left at the national speed limit and have not been downgraded?

Even the roads of Dungeness, with its isolated housing and acres of shingle beach, have not escaped the clutches of KCCs ‘Active Travel’ car-hating commissars and have been made 20mph.

Just like ULEZ and other so-called Clean Air Zones, it is all political gesturing as the establishment wants us all to go back to bicycles, like our impoverished ancestors.

We need positive action and leadership Mr Sunak, not more hollow electioneering promises.

Terry Hudson, member of the Alliance of British Drivers

There is no war on motorists

Whenever politicians become desperate, they sometimes take desperate measures to retain power.

One jolly wheeze is to create non-existent problems or to inflate trivialities into epic challenges and then claim to save the nation from them.

One such example was former president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, who years ago during an election promised he would ensure Zimbabwe would never again become a colony.

Absolute rubbish of course, but it fooled some people.

Here in the UK, we have recently been spared seven wheelie bins turning up on our doorstep and the draconian compulsory car sharing. The latest manifestation is the Prime Minister promising us he will stop the war on the motorist. Totally mythical, but once again if it fools some people then it has done what it says on the tin.

Robert Boston

Move to metric to slow down drivers

Charles Bain Smith rightly points to the many benefits of a lower speed limit.

I just think of the existing UK 30 speed limits as 30km/h (18mph). This is easy to do and zero cost, we do not need to spend enormous amounts of taxpayers' money on more outdated medieval 20mph signage.

We have been taught the world standard metric system at school for half a century and our Highway Code is nearly all metric so no problem for UK drivers.

R. Sherwood

Pupils should learn basic humanity

I've always felt that schools should revise their approach to teaching.

Certainly education is a stepping stone to a career but it should also teach young children how to adopt and appreciate the concept of being human and what that means.

Learning to acquire a basic knowledge in a range of subjects is all very laudable, but it doesn't address the fundamental question of the child's responsibility and role in society when they become adults.

Students are fed facts which are a tool to stimulate and broaden their minds but we mustn't allow them to refrain from the specifics of how to live their lives to complement the lives of others and to develop the greatest attribute of all, to be human, in the truest sense of the word.

Michael Smith

We’ve come a long way in 40 years

What a relief it was to read something positive about life in Britain today in the findings of the latest British Social Attitudes Survey.

It revealed that, in the last 40 years, the country has become dramatically more liberal-minded. Where 50% of respondents said same-sex relationships were “always wrong” in 1983, only 9% say that today. When it comes to a woman’s right to choose an abortion, only 37% said that she had that right compared with 76% today.

Similarly, there have been sweeping changes in our attitudes towards sex before marriage, having children out of wedlock and traditional gender roles in the workplace and the home. The BSA said that if Dr Who’s Time Machine transported a typical citizen from 1983 to present day Britain they would conclude that it was a “decidedly unfamiliar” environment.

Although the survey dealt with other issues such as younger people becoming markedly more left wing than older people and the increase in the number of people supporting increased tax and spending by the government, it was the change in social attitudes which most heartened me.

The only backward step, as far as I’m concerned, is that the attitude towards transgender people has hardened in the last few years and in that time the proportion of the British public describing themselves as “not prejudiced” towards transgender people fell from 82% to 64%.

Despite that, we’ve come a long way in the last 40 years and I think that we can be proud that we now live in a Britain which stands out as a beacon to the rest of the world for its liberal stance on social and moral issues and long may that remain the case.

John Cooper

Scooters should be banished

I have witnessesd a retired lady with her grandson in his pushchair being knocked to the ground on the pavement by a scooter, and her head smashing onto the kerb and splitting her skull.

An arrogant young guy aged about 20 rode off but was luckily seen on CCTV and I was a witness who made sure he got arrested. I myself have stepped outside my house onto the pavement and three times been knocked against the wall getting out of the way of e-scooters.

They are not allowed on public roads or pavements, only in gardens or on private land. So we cannont embrace them unless parliament changes the law.

I sincerely hope they are finally banished and companies go out of business. The police don’t want them used, nor do, I suggest, 90% of the public.

Young people should be walking, riding a pedal cycle or taking a bus, NOT dangerous e-scooters.

Robert Rensburg

Does wind power need more wind?

Eco-warriors deem wind generation as the answer to all our prayers.

Therefore I wonder if any of them will be kind enough, via your excellent letters page, to explain where the electricity will come from on a cold, icy and windless day in the winter please.

I am very eager to find out, as I am sure are other readers. I look forward to a comforting revelation to alleviate any concern and anxiety to winter chills.

Dave Haskell

So many can’t all hate Britain

Recent polls reveal that 60% of voters support left-leaning parties, ie: the liberal left.

It would be interesting to know on what grounds, apart from a few EU flag wavers at the Proms, Colin Bullen considers this significant proportion of the populace are unpatriotic and hate Britain.

Bill Ridley

A good way to stamp out emissions

Royal Mail in its present form is not very 'green'. A friend who lives half a mile away, but cannot walk far, posted me a card, applying a first class stamp.

Three days later it arrived at my house with 'Royal Mail Gatwick Mail Centre' stamped on it. It saddens me to think of the unnecessary emissions.

Nancy Davis

Entitled militants lead us on road to hell

It is reported that a number of civil servants have joined many like-minded activists in describing anyone who opposes the implementation of trans ideology as being Nazis.

Clearly such bigots are lacking in any historical knowledge, as the Nazis were possibly the worst mass murderers in history, while to oppose the medication plus often irreversible surgery of children - many of whom are just going through the normal angst of adolescence - is to be applauded, not condemned.

This kind of campaign is dominating public discourse, as small minorities of entitled militants are trying to force their opinions on the majority.

The environmental extremists who think it acceptable to block roads, and damage infrastructure in pursuit of the nonsense of net zero, make life difficult for the ordinary workers, while they attempt to stop the use of cars which are essential to everyday life, and demonise the means by which we keep warm in our homes.

The groups who appear at places like Dover to support illegal immigration via small boats have, in their middle class arrogance, no concern for the fact that the country lacks, inter alia, doctors, housing, and working class jobs, and therefore cannot accept unlimited numbers of those with no connection to this country.

The pathetic band of Remainers, who still refuse to accept the democratic wish of the British people to leave the EU, have mutated into Rejoiners, apparently unaware that the political culture of Europe is now moving steadily towards the far right. It may be that in not too long a time the EU will in fact be dominated by those most Remainers would consider fascists.

Just recently another group of self-absorbed blockheads have taken their anti-monarchical campaign into Buckingham Palace. I suspect that those on the Left who claim to want an elected head of state would not be happy were they to be faced with a President Margaret Thatcher, while conservatives would not have welcomed a President Tony Blair. A genuine neutral figure, arrived at by hereditary means, and possessing only symbolic power, is by the far the best method, but of course the obsessives who like to shout their views from the rooftops are too slow-witted to realise this.

Nearly 900 years ago Saint Bernard of Clairvaux said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and that is where activists are leading us. It is certainly time for the silent majority to speak up, and oppose all these vociferous dimwits, rather than merely tolerating them with a sigh.

Colin Bullen

Education puts children into boxes

Once again children are in the news. This time the reports relate to the increase in the number of pupils being excluded from school.

Concern is expressed about behaviour and mental health. Rather than looking at the way children and young people are dealt with, attention is directed to the effects of Covid and events during the epidemic.

All the recent reforms in education, relating to the curriculum, examinations and governance, have militated against the needs of children.

Academisation has taken schools out of the control of local authorities and broken the link between schools and their communities.

I was fortunate to grow up in a community that valued their children and supported their education. Now education is seen as a means of fitting young people to the role that the economy demands of them.

It is little wonder that young people suffer mental health problems when they are given no consideration as individuals.

Their parents are forced to go out to work and are unable to give them the care they would wish to give.

Teachers are no longer able to express their professionalism but have to conform to laid down procedures.

As a society we have lost the sense of human values to an extent that all relations depend upon the ability to access technology, which in turn depends on having the money to do so.

This is what is having such a serious, detrimental, effect on our children and young people.

Ralph A. Tebbutt

Crime is harming rural communities

The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) is pleased to see the police having an impact on rural crime after officers highlighted the work they are doing to help protect the rural community.

The police’s recent Rural Crime Week of Action, supported by the NFU, helped raise awareness about the efforts being made to tackle rural and wildlife crime effectively.

Now, we are calling for better protection for Kent farms in relation to GPS (global positioning system) and other equipment theft. This follows months of collaboration between the NFU, government and other key industry organisations, which led to the passing of the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act, aimed at deterring the theft of quad bikes and All-Terrain Vehicles.

We are asking for the act to be expanded to include other agricultural equipment, like GPS.

Kent farmers have told us that machinery and kit theft is, alongside hare coursing and fly tipping, one of the main issues blighting rural areas and their businesses.

Now we need to see secondary legislation passed to widen the scope of the Act so it includes other equipment, such as larger machinery or GPS.

Kent NFU, Kent officeholders, members and MPs worked together to get rural crime onto the Kent Police Control Strategy. We urge people with concerns to participate in a rural crime survey - forms.office.com/e/VWXRudRPgi - used to review the Kent Police Rural Crime Strategy.

The NFU in Kent also urges people to continue to report incidents to officers so intelligence can be gathered to help the police build up a firm picture of the problems and threats to our farms and rural communities.

Amanda Corp, NFU County adviser for Kent