Tories have not been convinced to restore funding for a new Park and Ride site on the fringes of the County Town.

A public debate was held Thursday night over plans to defer £1.5 million of funding for a “next generation” shuttle bus service from Langley Park Farm to Maidstone.

Last week Maidstone council's ruling Conservatives decided to divert the cash to new priorities, including a revamp of the town centre and reviving two long-standing bypass roads to the south of the borough.

But Lib Dems told a scrutiny committee meeting that they feared the All Saint's Link Road and South East Maidstone Strategic Link would never happen.

Cllr Fran Wilson, the Lib Dem group leader, warned that the flurry of new spending could be “throwing good money after bad”.

But the only concession gained during the meeting was that no money would be spent on the new roads until a report into possible government or KCC funding, due by the end of the year, has been completed.

Lib Dems last year approved plans for the Langley Park Farm site, after the closure of the Coombe Quarry Park and Ride in Armstrong Road. Under their plans it could have been operational by autumn 2009.

Cllr Chris Garland (Con), the leader of the council, said he believed spending money on the Park and Ride site this year would be “erroneous”.

He said: “The position of the Langley Park Farm Park and Ride would not serve people affected by the closure of Coombe Quarry. It will serve the residents of Headcorn but not Shepway North, Shepway South, Parkwood or Coxheath.

“People are not going to drive out of town just to come back in again.”

The road plans would make Maidstone a "County Town to be proud of", he said.

But he said that if more homes are built in that part of the borough over the next 10 years – as could happen under government house building targets – it would reestablish the case for the Langley Park Farm site.

Cllr Tony Harwood (Lib Dem), a former cabinet member for the environment, said the Park and Ride site would have been vital for improving congestion and air quality to the south of Maidstone.

Cllr Harwood accused the Tories of “Jeremy Clarkson politics”, accusing them of putting the car above the environment.

He said: “This is about whether you pour taxpayers' money into a concrete project that will improve the quality of life for many Maidstone residents now, or whether you invest in cloudcuckooland.”

Cllr Wilson added: “The town centre manager told me that we will have an under-allocation of parking spaces in the town centre within months. We have a current situation in which we have to think seriously about how we get people out of their cars at the perimeter of the town.”

Factfile

The All Saints Link Road would connect Upper Stone Street with the Maidstone gyratory. Traffic would no longer have to enter the one way system on College Road.

As a result, a no-car zone would be created between the Archbishops' Palace and the Carriage Museum, enabling it to become an arts and heritage quarter.

The South East Maidstone Strategic Link is the new name for the Leeds and Langley Bypass, intended to divert traffic off the B2163.