Another fight lies ahead with the government.. The issue once again is transport—this time the railways.
The argument is going to be with the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA), which is the government by any other name.
The saga has been a long one. Firstly we had the new channel tunnel rail link, but no domestic link to Medway. As Medway has the largest urban population in the south-east that was a bizarre decision in the first place.
Finally the government has decided we should have a link after all, but a slow link to east London stations, instead of the fast link to central London which we now enjoy.
The fast and therefore popular link to London Victoria will be abolished. If the government has its way no more will you able to get to and from central London in 42 minutes.
If you want a fast link to central London you will have to take a 20 minutes drive to Ebbsfleet, and then a tube train at the other end to reach a destination which current takes less than ¾ hour from Medway!
If you think this sounds like madness from a government pledged to get people onto public transport then you would be right. It is madness.
It seems the government just cannot get it right when it comes to transportation for Medway. They either want too much or not enough!
Remember the Cliffe airport option? We could hardly forget!
Then the government wanted plenty of fast links to everywhere for Medway, when we did not want it. Now they seem determined to take away what we have already got, and once again are prepared to fly in the face of popular opinion in these towns.
So once more the battle lines are drawn. The Conservative administration in Medway will fight just as hard to save the rail service as we did to save the marshes.
People in Medway are once again angry. They are fed up with airports they do not want and the loss of trains they do want.
They are fed up with a government that insists we build more and more houses, and fed up with being taxed more and getting less in return. The fight goes on.