Hoo Development Framework

I write to you as a resident of the Hoo Peninsula for over 40 years and as a Church of England Minister for the last fifteen years. With my experience of the area and the peoples' needs I have been very interested in the way you are approaching the need for the peninsula to take its share of development in the Medway area. Sadly the area has over the years seen a decrease in services from the council which has left it much in need, especially, in the areas of medical resources, schools, bus services and the road system. My greatest fear is that although you propose some small increase in schools it will not be nearly enough to cater for such large developments. I know, as a Governor of St. James Grain school, that the rolls on the Peninsula schools are full and for us at Grain we are being asked to accept children from other villages which is highly impractical given the bus services. Therefore, my first comment would be that the council needs to put in place these educational resources before allowing any further development. This is the same in the area of medical practices and road structure. For myself and many of those I meet regularly across the peninsula the waiting times to see a doctor are very lengthy and often end up with difficult emergency journeys to Medway Hospital. Which we all know is highly over stretched! My second comment is that it is hard to feel you are talking seriously about this plan being 'sustainable' without a viable infrastructure in place before development begins. I feel strongly that the road situation will be made impossible by potentially 10,000 new houses which could mean possibly at least another 20,000 cars plus service vehicles on the road. (and in reality it is only one road in and out of the peninsula). We have already experienced the huge difficulties for emergency vehicles trying to reach the outlying villages when there is an accident on 4 Elms Hill. My third comment is that your very expensive plan for a train service to London via Gravesend supposes that most of the people coming to live in this area will want to commute to London and travel on an already over stretched and unreliable line into London (my experience). I cannot imagine that people having to get into their cars to go to the station will not turn towards Strood and catch a fast train to London! I know most people feel that the money could be so much better spent on a very frequent electric bus service from the peninsula to Medway. This would seem a step towards your plan's hope of 'well-connecting' the communities and reducing pollution ('respecting the area's environment'),as well as helping the poorer families who find the rise in petrol prices so difficult. I do not want my comments to sound completely negative of your draft plan as I know we will need more houses in the area but if we do not see the importance of the getting a good infrastructure in place to meet the needs of the population living here at present then we will only be confounding our problems with the proposed framework. I thank you for the opportunity to comment