Surrealist threatened, undaunted

OFFENDING SIGN? Steve Coombes has been told to remove his posters

Independent Herne Bay candidate in county elections threatened with legal action by Canterbury City Council

An Independent candidate in today's county council elections has been threatened with possible legal action by Canterbury City Council.

Steve Coombes, who is promoting a festival to mark the centenary of artist Marcel Duchamp's visit to Herne Bay, was issued with a demand by the authority on Monday morning to take down election posters pasted onto a pedestrian zone sign in Mortimer Street.

But Mr Coombes says he was merely highlighting a legitimate political point. The former university lecturer said:

"The sign is so illegible and broken that the regulations which it is meant to announce are unenforceable. Moreover, £3,000 for Herne Bay community funds was used to pay for a traffic barrier that was not shut this Saturday, in consequence making both the expenditure and the barrier completely ludicrous."

Mr Coombes has not taken down the poster, or others which promote his BLAGA awards (British Local Authority Gallery of Absurdism) at eyesore The Bun Penny pub and King's Road car park, where he says the free parking scheme has gone unnoticed due to poor advertising

He said he will remove them after today's election. But a spokesman for Canterbury council said:

"We have been alerted by other election candidates that a road sign in Herne Bay showing a pedestrian zone has been obscured with election material of another candidate. This is a road safety matter for the police and Kent Highways to deal with. We have suggested to Mr Coombes that he removes this material, as it is in breach of highways legislation, and informed him that, if he doesn't, we will be urgently reporting the matter to Kent Highways."

thisiskent 3rd May 2013

Dangerous junction

We have a major problem with a local road junction that will soon result in a road traffic accident, and injury or even death.

There is a pedestrian refuge in Canterbury Road, near the junction with Charles Street. The position of the refuge seems to make it difficult for some longer vehicles to turn left from Canterbury Road into Charles Street.

Over the last few weeks, we have recorded several videos of vehicles (all of them PCL lorries) driving dangerously and illegally at this junction. What you can see is the lorry driving down the wrong side of the road into the oncoming traffic, or looping all the way round the junction, simply to be able to make the turn:

http://www.youtube.com/user/EastCliffPanel

The major culprit at the moment is PCL - these are the delivery lorries for the Herne Bay branch of Iceland. (Iceland do not have a direct email address, so I have contacted them through their website.) It is worth noting that dustcarts also have problems at this junction, as do the heavy plant vehicles associated with local building work.

As you will see on the YouTube videos that we have recorded, the PCL lorries repeatedly carry out dangerous manoeuvres. This recently almost resulted in a head-on collision, which you can see in the most recent video:

Kent Highways have told me that this junction isn't a high enough priority, as it doesn't have a crash history. It is blindingly obvious that continued inaction will all but guarantee that it will have a "crash history". I've sent them a link to the videos. I've also sent a link to PCL, the Police, and our county councillors.

Let's hope they sort something out before someone gets hurt.