Caroline Lucas on KIG

Great letter from Caroline in the Maidstone edition of the Kent Messenger this week:

Dear Editor,

Once againI have made a submission to the consultation on KIG in the hope that continuing public objections about the environmentally destructive nature of this vast industrial estate will bear fruit.

What is more, the recession casts an enormous question mark over the viability of the proposals.

There is a potential conflict between KIG and the China Gateway development planned for Thanet, since both rely on heroic,and totally unsubstantiatedassumptions about future economic activity.

Proposals for economic development in this recession need to become realistic about the state of the economy.

A locally focused response to the recession could be upon three elements:

• Implementing public transport improvements
• Taking unfinished and empty buildings into public ownership and ensuring decent housing for all
• Beginning a comprehensive energy efficiency and local energy supply programme

All of these would create useful employmentwithout the traffic congestion and air pollution a completed KIG project would impose on the Maidstone area.

Caroline Lucas, Green Party Member of the European Parliament for Kent