HEALTH chiefs have backed campaigners demanding road improvements between Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells in light of changes to A&E.

Tunbridge Wells MP Greg Clark (Con) and Tonbridge and Malling MP Sir John Stanley (Con) said Steve Phoenix, the chief executive of West Kent Primary Care Trust, had agreed with them that there was now a pressing need for the Colts Hill bypass, when they met him last Friday.

Their meeting came following Health Secretary Alan Johnson’s announcement that he had given the green light to cuts in A&E services at Maidstone Hospital.

The decision means that an estimated 5,000 of the 60,000 patients a year taken to A&E at Maidstone will, in the future, be taken to different A&E units, including the Kent and Sussex in Tunbridge Wells - on a road network which has long been considered poor.

See Friday's Kent Messenger for full story