County road chiefs have defended a plan to bid for a contract that could see Kent County Council take over the maintenance of motorways and other main roads in Kent and Sussex.

The politician in charge of highways insisted KCC’s ability to look after its own roads would not be compromised if it won a contract from the Highways Agency to look after an additional 950km of motorway and trunk roads in Kent and Sussex.

Cllr Keith Ferrin (Con), KCC’s cabinet member for highways, moved to downplay concerns when he was summoned to answer questions about it by a cross-party watchdog committee yesterday.

But the public part of the meeting ended in controversy and a debate was cut short after councillors said it was impossible to talk about the issue without referring to a confidential business plan.

The Kent Messenger Group was formally excluded after an intervention from opposition Liberal Democrat spokesman Dan Daley, who pressed Mr Ferrin to explain why the business case stated the risks "might be significant in the short term".

During a brief debate in public, Cllr Ferrin said there was a misunderstanding about KCC’s role, which he described as a "junior partner" in a consortium led by contractors Ringway Jacobs. Only a handful of county council staff would be involved.

He said: "There is a fundamental misunderstanding about what this is about. In all likelihood, it would involve three of our staff, none of whom are part of the senior management team...at the end of the day, the impact on our staff would be absolutely minimal."

It would be up to Ringway Jacobs to bear the costs if more staff were needed to maintain the motorways covered by the contract, he added. They include the M20 and M2, as well as stretches of the A2, the A21, the A259 and A249.

Cllr Daley said the claims that KCC’s capacity to look after its own roads would not be jeopardised was contradicted by the business case. At that point, the meeting went into private session.