Weak Planning Policy

Cllr’s Harwood and English (LibDem) frequently refer to the inadequacy of our Planning Policy and they are quite right in this because it is weak and frequently ineffectual. However they are of course more shy when it comes to pointing out that it was produced under the leadership of the LibDems back in 2000.
At the last full council meeting Cllr English in response to a direct question over who was responsible for this state of affairs, admitted the Local Plan (the planning policy) was not robust and blamed what he called a ‘rogue’ planning inspector for the inadequacies and to quote “their [the LibDems] only mistake was not having stood up to him”.
Beyond this he intimated that advice given at the time, was that the policy would be sufficiently robust, however he declined to say by whom exactly. We can only hope they do not take the same advice this time over the new planning policy, the LDF.
If we think back over the last 7 years at the various developments across the Borough, how different would Maidstone now be if the LibDems had stood up to the inspector and ensured a robust local planning policy?