Residents often complain their voices are not being heard by their local authorities – but one community has decided to do something about it.

This week saw the first Downswood Community Forum held in the community centre in Chiltern Close, Downswood, near Maidstone.

The meeting was chaired by Cllr Gary Cooke, who is both the local divisional representative for Kent County Council and its chairman. He explained: “The suggestion came at the last parish council meeting.

“A number of residents felt they were not being heard. So this was a meeting for the residents themselves to talk about whatever was worrying them.”

John Everett, chairman of the Downswood Community Association, said: “It was good-natured and respectful but it gave people the chance to air their many grievances.

“There’s a general feeling that we are not being represented properly.

“We’re quite a small community but everywhere is looking so untidy.

“We have a lot of building work going on locally – 420 new homes at Parsonage Place – and there is just mud left everywhere.

“For example, there were some pyracantha bushes growing over a footpath and causing problems. It took ages to get them cut back but then the cuttings were just left in the road!”

Cllr Cooke said: “There was a lot of concern about overgrown hedges but also about nuisance bikers on the footpaths, parking in Deringwood Drive, and the effects of the building work at Church Road and its implications for Willington Street.

“Some were matters for the police, some for the county and borough councils, and some for the parish council.

“The meeting was well attended. These were people who pay their rates, pay their taxes, and just want to feel their voice is heard.

“Hopefully, it was a good start in bringing the community together.”

In the audience was the Mayor of Maidstone Cllr Gordon Newton, who lives locally, and the chairman of Downswood Parish Council, Roz Cheesman.

A note was kept of the issues raised and residents will now be surveyed to discover their priorities, with a report on the findings going back to the appropriate authority.

A follow-up forum will be held in February and then every quarter thereafter.

At the last parish council meeting, some residents were annoyed that the public were given only 10 minutes to speak, that the meeting was adjourned during the public session, with none of the points made by the public being minuted, and that the council would not discuss any item that was not on the agenda.

But in fact all these are the correct procedures laid out by law and followed by all parish councils.

John Everett and his wife Dianne both previously served as parish councillors, joining in September 2021, but only staying seven months before resigning – after becoming frustrated at how bureaucratic the meetings were.

Some residents have also fallen out with the Canterbury Church Diocese over plans to fell trees at The Glebe field in nearby Otham.

They suspect it is a forerunner for more housing development.