Countryside Walk Update

06/05/2009

Photograph by Louise Matthews

Thank you everyone for a brilliant turn-out for the walk on Monday. Your support is very much appreciated by us, as we are all working hard behind the scenes to fight off this proposal. It is nice to know the support is there when we need it. A special thank you to Hugh Robertson, Paul Carter, Jenny Whittle and Richard Knox-Johnston who kindly gave time in their busy schedules to come and support us. Well done Hugh for leading the walk!! Even we were surprised by the sheer numbers of supporters this morning – nearly 2500 people joined us for the walk and the photos on the Green beforehand. The unforeseen aspect of this good turnout was that many of you had a long wait at times, with the narrowest part of the route causing a bit of a log-jam, but we are very grateful that everyone responded with patience and good humour, enabling the walk to proceed safely. We are also aware that it was difficult to hear the speakers at times. This event was planned as a walk, not a meeting with speeches and hence we had not appreciated that a PA system would be needed, and we did not intend to keep people waiting with long speeches. We are not experts in arranging this sort of event – in fact it was the first time for most of us, and we have learned from this experience and will hopefully get it right next time. We also organised this walk at very short notice, as we wished to demonstrate the strength of opposition to this planning application ahead of the Maidstone Borough Council Planning meeting this Thursday, so if our publicity of the walk was not up to scratch it was down to time constraints. We are all volunteers, who run STOPKIG alongside our families, jobs and other commitments, and we do our best to get things done around our already busy lives. That said, you, our supporters did us proud, and we will continue to fight this proposal with renewed vigour! Photos from the Walk can be found by clicking here