Barnyard and Summer

Summer is here time to enjoy the evenings sitting in your garden after a hard days work enjoying a cold drink NO! As you sit down some moron lights a fire with smoke not only driving you in doors but making you shut doors and windows, I hope you read this in Gaze Hill, then comes the Party goers who think it is a good idea to light a massive bonfire at 4 in the morning and have loud music accompanied by shouting hope you read this in East Street.

In the present economic climate you would have thought our local council would do there best to support local business? Not so it seems The Barnyard at Upchurch has installed a Marquee for weddings etc and improved their alfresco eating area, which has been done in a very professional way. It seems they have done this without planning permission and of course ignoring planning regulation is nearly as bad as being a terrorists in this country, so the full might of the Council is being used to destroy this so called blot on the landscape but this will lead to many local people losing their jobs and maybe even the business folding and what of the barn well that can go into disrepair, the fields over grown but that will natural part of the landscape! I do not have the full story only what I read in the paper and of course we need planning laws and maybe the owners of Barnyard should be chastised but surely a compromise could be reached here is a suggestion.
Give planning on the decking and car park that effects no one and cannot be seen from any distance, it does not create any extra noise, this will encourage the Barnyard to make business remember it not only a business but a tourist attraction so benefits Swale as a whole. The owners say they erected this Tent to test the market to see if it worth spending Hundreds of Thousands of pounds on another Barn, well if that is the case why do not the Council say you can leave the Tent up for a further two years to test the water as such then it will come down, the owners can not complain because they have admitted it is not a permanent fixture, the Council have flexed there muscles and appeased the NIMBY’s everyone is happy. The recent disgraceful behaviour of some MP’s plus the KCC Iceland bank debacle should make all politicians and civil servants realise that the public have had enough of being treated a some misguided child who does not understand, remember the old Lefty saying “Power to the People” well hopefully David Cameron will make that come true

Martin Clarke Sittingbourne