From climate change to ULEZ, our readers from across the county give their weekly take on the biggest issues impacting Kent in their letters to the editor...

Several letters in this edition refer to correspondence from last week which can be read here.

County town for a good reason

With reference the KentOnline columnist wishing the County Town to be moved to Canterbury.

He has not looked into why Maidstone was chosen as the county town in 1889.

At that time horses were the main means of transport.

It wasn’t until 1885 that Karl Benz invented a car with an internal combustion engine.

As I recall the reason Maidstone was chosen as County Town was because a county councillor should be able to reach the county hall on horseback in one day.

That is why Yorkshire is divided into three counties and Sussex is divided into two counties.

Canterbury would have been too long a journey on horseback from, say, Beckenham, which at the time was in Kent.

During the 19th century, Canterbury remained a quiet market town. Its old importance was completely gone as the new industrial towns of the North and Midlands mushroomed.

Maidstone was an industrial town with some seven paper mills: Old Mill, Pull Mill, Turkey Mill and Upper Loose Mill, Tovil Mill, Springfiled Mill and Upper Tovil Mill.

There were also a number of brewers in Maidstone; Fremlins Earl Street, Lower Brewery, Lower Stone Street, Mason& Co. Waterside Brewery and Style and Winch. Maidstone was also a centre of insurance companies and banks.

The paper mills have gone, the brewers have gone and even the county council staff have been disbursed.

Mervyn Warner

Health can’t be bought and sold

The National Health Service was one of the benefits that the generation who had suffered from two world wars, and years of deprivation and economic struggle between them, demanded after the victory in 1945.

For the first time people could receive the treatment they needed, when they needed it, without payment at the time of treatment.

All those who work do pay for health and social services through National Insurance.

But the health of the nation is not just an individual matter, as has been made very clear by Covid and the effects of such things as tuberculosis and flu which can be easily transmitted.

The whole economy depends upon a healthy nation.

Despite this, successive governments have weakened the structure of the NHS and undermined its basic principles.

We now face a collapsing system which even the magnificent efforts of all of those who work in the NHS cannot do much more to sustain it.

We have seen reform after reform with each one leading to a deterioration of the system and a removal of democratic control.

The NHS is not a sacred cow, it is one of the last institutions that regards all individuals to be of equal value and that health is not something to be bought and sold but a fundamental right for all people.

If we depart from this view then we can no longer claim to be civilised.

The strikes arise because successive governments have based their policies on ensuring those who profit from the work of other people should increase their profits and that those who work should only receive sufficient to enable them to continue working.

Ralph A. Tebbutt

Pay staff what they deserve

A New Year would hopefully have brought more understanding of the problems besieging this country but I see from the letters pages so far this year that the same right-wing ideology exists.

It’s no wonder there is so much anger on all sides when some are still living in the past and cannot accept this country was not the great empire we were led to believe in days gone by.

Two great British institutions still in existence today are not ideal but could still have great futures if they were managed efficiently by our government and given more consideration from all its patrons.

If we do not pay NHS staff what they thoroughly deserve after the trials of the last few years there will be even more people leaving for less stressful jobs, which would leave fewer staff to accommodate the ever-growing patient numbers and having to pay a fee to be treated would be yet another step back to the past, leaving those less well off unable to receive treatment.

Meanwhile, the BBC is an independent body still providing inpartiality and some of the best programming around.

Mike Coomber

Only one reason for ULEZ charge

What an absolute joke that the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) will make any difference to air quality.

I can talk from first-hand experience of when they introduced the Congestion Charge in London, it made no difference to the volume of traffic.

Like everyone else we still continued to travel into the city, pay the congestion charge and then pass it off as a business expense. It's the same with the existing ULEZ charge.

Whatever else one might think of Khan, he is not unintelligent and must realise that these measures make no difference to air quality.

I know why they are being introduced and you probably do as well.

Harry Armitage

Timely reminder to use seatbelt

For the benefit of Rishi Sunak and others of his generation, it may be a good time to resurrect a certain public information film.

Wearing a seatbelt is second nature to those of us who watched the “Clunk Click (every trip)” campaign in the early 1970s.

How about replacing the previous presenter (whose name cannot be mentioned) with Jeremy Clarkson?

Gary Freestone

BBC seems to hate our country

In his reply to my letter concerning BBC bias, John Cooper accuses me of presenting no proof.

I would have considered my references made to the slanted descriptions of past events, where no effort is made to present a balanced view of multiple issues, such as slavery, racism, or more recently Brexit and climate change, are obvious to anyone watching.

Endless quotes from recent investigations revealing the one-sided nature of BBC output would render a letter too long for publication.

I could easily produce a lengthy article on the subject.

The BBC does not allow any dispute on the subject of climate change, insisting that the science was conclusive, which it is not.

'I know a number of people who can no longer endure the constant propaganda by so-called comedy programmes such as Have I Got News For You...'

The choice of panellists, and indeed the selection of audiences, for such programmes as Question Time and Any Questions, ensures that opinions contrary to the fashionable opinion of the so called progressive elite, are either not presented or vastly overmatched by the number of supporters of the latter.

I know a number of people who can no longer endure the constant propaganda produced by these programmes, so can no longer watch them. Unfortunately this also applies to so-called comedy programmes such as Have I Got News For You.

The presenters on BBC news programmes act as attack dogs against those speaking against what the organisation considers to be the truth, reacting with incredulity to the idea that anyone could hold a different opinion, while giving opposing speakers every leeway. Even their sports presenters are allowed to air their personal political prejudices, predictably always on the left liberal side, while a recent independent survey castigated the drama department as consistently presenting a negative view of this country and its past.

As Mr Cooper denies my assertion concerning those who have always hated their own country I can only suggest that he reads the political essays of George Orwell, who knew these people only too well. I was once a great admirer of the BBC, based on its sterling efforts during the war, but it is no longer the same organisation, and I am sure that Lord Reith would be horrified if he could see what it has become.

Colin Bullen

How long before we take action?

Colin Bullen would do well to check whether the end of his missives agree with the beginning!

Leaving aside the ‘world will end tomorrow’ merchants, predictions have always tended towards hyperbole in order to get noticed. The trend which Mr Bullen has failed to notice is that the extent of scientific knowledge has advanced so far that ‘worst case scenarios’ can be offered with ever-increasing confidence. Of course these scenarios never materialise because at least some notice is taken of them and mitigations are put in place.

Mr Bullen refers to predictions of fatal atmospheric conditions in cities as over-reaction. Not only does he ignore the actual fatalities in London in the smogs of the 1960s, he appears to be unaware of the similar conditions currently happening in large Asian cities.

How far must we go down the road of filling cemeteries before Mr Bullen thinks we should act? Likewise, on population, Mr Bullen seems to ignore the fact that the Chinese could see the sense of anticipating problems when they introduced their ‘one-child’ policy; nevertheless, the aid organisations of the world would tell Mr Bullen that famine is a very real prospect for hundreds of millions of people, right now.

Two disaster areas nearer home that Mr Bullen might like to consider: the pollution of the Thames for centuries, and the coal-mining practices of the Victorian era. Yes, we did ‘adapt’ to the sewage in the Thames, to the point where the river is habitable by fish once more. Yes, we did ‘adapt’ to the pneumoconiosis suffered by coalminers by improving conditions but in both cases not until millions of people had died early and unpleasant deaths. Will Mr Bullen’s approach be the same with climate change? How many millions are to die from droughts, extremes of temperature, uncontrollable fires, and more which is yet to come, before he thinks that action should be taken?

John Brightwell

Climate science has moved on

Once again Colin ‘do not believe it’ Bullen desperately tries to deny climate change using a few spurious examples from over 50 or so years ago, when the information was still uncertain.

Yes, the scientists mentioned made some rather ill-judged comments at the time, but as a 2016 article in the reputable US science magazine The Smithsonian points out: “...some of the era’s predictions were based on faulty logic.

"But others failed to come true because the predictions themselves changed the course of history.” For instance Kenneth Watts’ claim about gas masks was a little wide of the mark but today millions, especially in South East Asia are having to wear general masks due to the air pollution to help reduce suffering from health problems.

Elsewhere Paul Ehrlich, of Stanford University, may have been wrong about global famine then, but the subsequent 1980s ones in Africa were a clear warning; and the rising risks of such today must be addressed alongside the massive loss of biodiversity we see happening alongside, and in large part due to, man-made global heating, damaging environmental activity, and lack of equitable distribution of food, etc, to rising populations. Lastly, contrary to Mr Bullen’s gross hype about campaigners wanting a return to the so-called dark ages, all environmentalists are calling for is a change to a fully green and renewable industrial base, with the concomitant jobs, and alongside such as eco-friendly farming mixed with re-wilding, etc.

Ray Duff