Canterbury congestion scheme plans to be reviewed

The plan would have seen Canterbury surrounded by a new ring road and split into zones

A traffic management scheme which would see Canterbury split into zones, with driving across their borders banned, will be reviewed.

The idea was included in the draft local plan put forward by the city council's previous Conservative-led administration in October.

The Labour-Liberal Democrat alliance, which took over the city after May's local elections, has set up a working group to reconsider the proposal.

The Conservatives' new leader said the "hugely unpopular" plan was regularly brought up by voters, and was one of the main reasons for the party's defeat.

The Canterbury circulation plan would split the city into five zones, with drivers only allowed to enter each from a new ring road.

Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras would be used to issue fines.

The council's new leader, Labour councillor Alan Baldock, said a cross-party working group would be set up to review aspects of the local plan which had attracted the most public response when put out to consultation, including the circulation plan.

“It was never going to be popular," he said, "and any plan that’s so radical should have really been sounded against the people that are going to be affected by it most, rather than just literally plonked on people’s doorsteps.

"That was the way the previous administration worked.”

'Hugely unpopular'

Rachel Carnac, the new leader of the Conservative opposition in Canterbury, is backing the review.

She said: "The zoning scheme is hugely unpopular so it's only right that the transport options are looked at again.

"It was something that came up frequently on the doorstep when we were campaigning, I think it was one of several reasons why we didn't do well in the May elections.

"Obviously congestion and air quality are issues that we've got to overcome, but there are ways and means of doing that and hitting motorists isn't the way to do it."

'Retrograde step'

But environmentalists are concerned the message abandoning the plan would send out.

Clare Turnbull, a Green councillor on the city council, said: "It seems such a retrograde step to scrap our plans for encouraging other forms of transport and reducing reliance on car transport at this juncture, when some people are beginning to buy into it."