Kent County Council wants to ban all motor vehicles from the first 35 metres of Brewer Street, off Week Street. Objections close at noon on Monday 21 September.

Kent County Council is proposing to ban all motor vehicles from the top of Brewer Street in Maidstone town centre. The ban would cover the first 35 metres of the street, measured from its junction with Week Street.

It is one of two orders advertised on 27 August. The second redraws the parking lines on three streets that run off Week Street. Both are proposals rather than decisions, and objections close at 12 noon on Monday 21 September (Kent County Council statutory notice, 27 August 2026).

What the two orders would do

The first is an amendment to the council’s traffic movements order for the borough. Its wording is short. It “intends to prohibit all motor vehicles from access” on Brewer Street, from the junction with Week Street, for 35 metres in an easterly direction.

The second amends the borough’s waiting restrictions and street parking order. It would:

  • remove all existing waiting restrictions from both sides of Brewer Street, from Week Street for 35 metres east
  • replace 2.3 metres of single yellow line on the south side of Brewer Street with double yellows, joined across the carriageway
  • remove all waiting restrictions from both sides of Union Street, from Week Street for 34 metres east
  • extend the double yellows on the north side of Union Street by 2 metres, then across the carriageway
  • remove all waiting restrictions from both sides of St Faith’s Street, from Week Street for 14 metres south west
  • replace the double yellows on the north side of St Faith’s Street with 13 metres of permit holders only bays, starting 7.5 metres east of Station Road
  • add 6.5 metres of double yellow on the south side of St Faith’s Street, from the existing disabled bays, and continue across the carriageway

Read together, the pattern is consistent. On all three streets the council wants the yellow lines stripped from the Week Street end. On Brewer Street alone, it also wants no motor vehicles there at all. Yellow lines have little purpose on a stretch of road that traffic may not enter.

Union Street and St Faith’s Street are not covered by the vehicle ban in this notice.

Schematic showing the three streets off Week Street affected by the proposed orders: Brewer Street 35 metres with all motor vehicles prohibited and waiting restrictions removed, Union Street 34 metres with waiting restrictions removed and no vehicle ban, and St Faith's Street 14 metres with waiting restrictions removed and permit holder bays added further in
The three affected stretches, drawn to scale against each other. Only Brewer Street carries the proposed ban on motor vehicles. Graphic by Maidstone Live, from the statutory notice.

Proposed, not decided

The status matters. Both Maidstone orders are advertised as proposals, using the words “hereby proposes to make” and “hereby propose to make”.

That is not true of everything in the same notice. The council made its Ashford and Dover waiting restriction orders on 27 August, and they take effect on 28 August. Those are done. Maidstone’s are not, and the consultation period runs for more than three weeks yet.

How to object, and the rule that catches people out

Anyone can support or object. There is one condition that is easy to miss:

your objection must explain the impact on traffic in the local area to be valid

That is the council’s own wording, and it appears on both Maidstone orders. An objection that only says the change is inconvenient, or that the council should spend the money elsewhere, does not meet it.

You can respond in one of two ways, by 12 noon on Monday 21 September 2026:

  • online at kent.gov.uk/highwaysconsultations
  • by post to The Senior Parking and Traffic Regulation Officer, Traffic Management Team, Kent Highways and Transportation, Kroner House, Eurogate Business Park, Ashford, Kent TN24 8XU

The council’s full statement of reasons, and the plan showing exactly where the lines fall, can also be inspected at Kroner House by appointment, booked through tro@kent.gov.uk.

What it means for you

Brewer Street matters to drivers more than its length suggests. It carries on-street pay bays, charged 8am to 6pm and free from 6pm to 8am and all day Sunday, and it shares a name with Brewer Street East car park, a 61 space council car park and one of only two in town selling a 30 minute ticket, at 85p. Union Street has two council car parks of its own. Our guide to parking in Maidstone has the full tariffs.

The banned stretch is measured from Week Street, so it is the entrance end of the street rather than a section in the middle. The notice does not say how vehicles would reach anything beyond it, and it does not mention the car park at all. That detail is on the plan, which sits behind the council’s consultations page.

If you park on Brewer Street or use the car park, the plan is the document to ask for before the deadline, not the notice.

What we could not confirm today

Kent County Council’s highways consultations page returned an access error when we tried to open it, so we could not read the statement of reasons or see the plan. The council gives no explanation in the notice itself for why the Brewer Street stretch should be closed to traffic. Everything above is taken from the statutory notice, which is the legal record of what is proposed.

Sources