Borough of Maidstone the February 2017 the council has 23 Conservative, 22 Liberal Democrat, 4 UKIP, 4 independent and 2 Labour party councillors. The council is based in the town centre having replaced its many small offices with one large building called Maidstone Gateway. The shopfront appearance is intended to make it easier to access information and services. The third tier of local government is the civil parish; in Maidstone some of the parishes have a neither a parish council or a parish meeting, as indicated (1) : The River Medway was the earliest form of transport through the area. It was navigable
Borough of Maidstone earliest in the county – that to Rochester and Chatham – was opened in 1728. In modern times, two motorways – the M2 and the M20 – pass to the far north of the borough and just north of the town centre of Maidstone respectively. The earliest line through Kent was built by the South Eastern Railway. It was not, however, built to pass through Maidstone: instead, a station was built at Paddock Wood railway station, then named "Maidstone Road", some six miles away. It was only in the period between 1844 (when that main line was connected by a