Rochester and Strood (UK Parliament constituency) sources of employment, professions and trades in Kent as part of the London Commuter Belt. Levels of reliance on social housing are similar to most of the region in this seat. Rochester and Strood (UK Parliament constituency) Rochester and Strood is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2015 by Kelly Tolhurst, a Conservative. Rochester and Strood constituency is an urban and rural area in north Kent situated alongside the River Medway, which joins the Thames Estuary, becoming a wide salty and sea-like waterway at its northern river mouth. It spans two of the
Maidstone was reported at the time that inhabitants were bitterly opposed to the railway, the mayor suggesting that "Maidstone will be ruined as a commercial town". It was said that wharfingers and corn and coal merchants would be hardest hit. In 1842, the South Eastern Railway, to reach the Channel ports of Folkestone and Dover, put its main line through Tonbridge and Ashford, some to the south. A station named Maidstone Road was built in an isolated spot called Paddock Wood, from where coaches were run to the county town. Two years later a branch line was built to Maidstone. In