Over and Out

It’s pretty old news now, but worth summarising yesterday’s Kent County Council election results. The pace of events yesterday left no time to post.

So, firstly, the executive summary: the Conservatives are out, and I’m out. 

Here is the result for Sevenoaks North and Darent Valley:

Marc Logen (Reform UK)                  2,133 (37%)

Roger Gough (Conservative)            1,945 (33%)

Adam Durbaba (Liberal Democrat)  1,103 (19%)

Michael Barker (Green Party)              387 (7%)

Ben Davies (Labour)                             283 (5%)

My warm congratulations to Marc Logen on his election. We had a good conversation at yesterday’s count and I wish him very well. He has, as I have had for 20 years, the great good fortune to represent a truly wonderful part of Kent.

The result is a huge reversal from 2021, and from previous elections. Yet it was just part of a wider rout for the Conservatives across Kent, and the country. (The elections were also very poor for Labour, but they had many fewer seats to defend). At KCC, the Conservatives now have just 5 seats out of 81 (we won 62 in 2021). Reform UK took 57 seats and will form the new administration; the Liberal Democrats, with 12 seats, will be the opposition. Across the country, we lost 676 of the 993 council seats that we were defending.

I have given a lot of interviews since the results were announced, including one for the Today Programme this morning (there is a clip at around 8:33). My view is that the Conservatives are still paying the price for aspects of our record in government, especially in 2021-22, and have to fight hard for a right to be heard, even as any goodwill towards the Labour government is rapidly dissipated. 

I also wish the new Reform administration well as they take over at County Hall. Too much - for the council and for the county - rides on their success for anyone to wish otherwise. I did not, though, see anything in the campaign to suggest serious engagement on their part with the big challenges and pressures that face the council (such as adult social care, children’s services and SEND). It is up to them to surprise us.

Vote Conservative on Thursday 1 May

Vote for your local Conservative candidate in tomorrow (Thursday’s) election to Kent County Council. There’s a lot at stake. 

FACT: Across the country, councils are failing or on the financial brink. Eight have gone bust (‘a Section 114 notice’). Thirty are on life support from central government. Conservative Kent County Council is not among them

FACT: We deliver sound budgets, even under intense pressure, and our financial management is strong (it’s not us saying that, it’s our external auditors). We have saved approaching £1 billion over the last decade, cut debt costs from 13% of our budget to 8% and brought many areas of big spending pressure under control. We are making our services secure for the future

FACT: We stand up for Kent. We have made sure that Kent council tax payers are not on the hook for the costs of asylum. We took the government to the High Court – and won – so that unaccompanied minors are moved rapidly to other parts of the country 

FACT: We are there when you need us. We have helped residents through tough financial times, including pensioners targeted by Labour’s withdrawal of the Winter Fuel Payment. We provide some of the best and lowest-cost services to protect vulnerable children in the country

Money will stay tight, and we can’t expect help from a cash-strapped Labour government. Local government reorganisation, driven by Labour, means there’s a huge job in safely transferring our vital services – for some people, a matter of life and death - to new councils.

These challenges need serious, dedicated councillors who care about our communities, not those who offer only slogans and treat them as a vehicle for protest about national politics.

For a council that cares about Kent and our communities; that will keep Kent financially secure; and that will always stand up for Kent – vote Conservative on Thursday 1 May.

Tackling drainage in Watery Lane

Watery Lane will be closed overnight from tomorrow night (20 March) for up to two nights. The closure will be between 8PM and 5AM, and the closure will be from Chaucer Business Park to the junction of Saxbys Road. This is for KCC to undertake drainage works to address the long-standing problems on the road. 

While there are a number of factors affecting Watery Lane, in particular the interaction between the Network Rail drainage system under the bridge and the Kent Highways drainage system, the works to be undertaken over the next couple of days will focus on the latter. There will be a thorough cleanse of all the gullies, catchpits and manholes and jet all the pipework in the Kent Highways system in that section of the road.

Once these works have been completed, and it is confirmed that they have been effective (our drainage engineer will review the works on completion) the Highways Operations team will be able to carry out the necessary repairs to the road surface; they have been unable to do so as long as the water is running.

Hopefully these works will provide some relief from the problems that have affected this section of road. I will post again when there are further updates on how the works have gone and when the road surface repairs can take place.

Pilgrims Way closures

A quick note on today’s significant disruption on Pilgrims Way and Pilgrims Way East. 

The Pilgrims Way closure (between junctions with The Landway and Old Terrys Lodge Road) was for urgent highway works by KCC - patching that needed to be undertaken rapidly. These works are set to go on through to the end of the week.

When these works were under way, BT Openreach closed PWE between Tudor Drive and Row Dow under emergency closure provisions (I’ll come back to the merits or otherwise of that shortly). As is usual in these cases, KCC was not notified until after the road was closed.

My thanks to Simon Reay for highlighting that there were severe problems/ deficiencies with the signage and access for residents on the KCC Pilgrims Way works. I took this up with the Streetworks team and got the following information/ action.

The surface for the patching work in Pilgrims Way will reinstated tomorrow and Wednesday, and from Wednesday the section between The Landway and Cotmans Ash Lane should be reopened. Between Cotmans Ash Lane and Old Terrys Lodge Road will remain closed until Friday. Residents should already have access to their homes, although there may be delays while specific sections of the road are made safe for that access. The Streetworks Inspector will attend the site tomorrow morning to make sure the right signage is in place.

This should not have been as disruptive as it was, and I am sorry for the bad experiences residents had today; hopefully these steps will make the situation a lot more manageable for the remainder of the works. 

In relation to PWE and the BT works, Openreach confirmed at 1:15 that they were complete and the road was being reopened. What this does highlight, though, is the use made of emergency provisions. KCC (and other highway authorities) has been raising this issue for some time. A change in national policy is required. Fortunately, the House of Commons Transport Select Committee is carrying out an inquiry into the issue because it is a major problem across the country. KCC put in a very strong submission to the Inquiry and so we have been invited to give evidence this week.

Finally, all this is separate from the highways improvement works on Pilgrims Way East next week (24-25 March), which as anyone who has driven through there will know, has been notified for some time.

Park Lane works completed

The works and road closure in Park Lane Seal have been completed well ahead of schedule. 

The contractor had completed the works by late on Monday (the first day) and so the road was already open throughout yesterday - which is why there seemed to be no evidence of the closure by late afternoon. 

The original closure was scheduled for up to five days. Given the difficulty of alternative routes when Park Lane is closed, it is good that the contractor was able to allocate extra resource to the works and so minimise the disruption to residents and to the wider road network.

Better Children’s Services: the Education Select Committee

This is going back a few days (it’s been a busy week); on Tuesday I gave evidence to the House of Commons Education Select Committee on aspects of the government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. I was there in my role as Children’s Services spokesperson for the County Councils Network (CCN), although I also made reference to experiences in Kent, and was alongside representatives from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the National Network for the Education of Care Leavers and the charity Kinship.

This was to some degree a repeat of the evidence that I gave to the same Committee (albeit with entirely different membership) in March last year. As before, this covered the problems of cost and service availability in children’s services. This was the subject of the well-regarded Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, chaired by Josh MacAlister (now a Labour MP), followed by a White Paper and a number of initiatives under the previous government. The difference this time is that there is now legislation under consideration, and that the evidence session focused on the Bill’s provisions in relation to management of the market, the development of Regional Care Cooperatives, kinship care, the expanding role of Virtual Schools and care leavers.

While I am critical of some of the education provisions of the Bill (some of which the government has had to row back on), the approach to children’s services is sensible and a welcome example of continuity between governments and across parties. In particular, the problems in the provision of children’s social care (highlighted in a report by the CMA some years ago) are best addressed through strengthening local authority commissioning and increasing the supply of places, as argued in a report (The Way We Care) commissioned by CCN last year. The bill gives the Secretary of State powers to introduce a profit cap, but it is very much a reserve power if other measures fail. That is a right and pragmatic approach; a cap now, without the introduction of other measures, could simply reduce the available provision.

At the end of the session, I highlighted “the elephant in the room”: the £2.5 billion in funding that Josh MacAlister highlighted as necessary to deliver the reforms that the Independent Review advocated. The previous government’s White Paper, Stable Homes, Built on Love was well-received but did not commit to this funding. In the autumn budget and subsequent local government financial settlement, the government established a £270 million Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant. I urged that this should be viewed as a down payment on the funding needed to deliver a comprehensive programme of reform.

You can find the evidence session on the parliamentary TV channel here.

Park Lane Seal closure from Monday

The emergency closure of Park Lane Seal next week was announced yesterday. The closure, between the junctions with Blackhall Lane and Bichet Green Road, will start on Monday for up to five days (17-21 February). This is for essential safety works to trees on unregistered land that Kent Highways is undertaking under its statutory duty of care. Because of the width of the carriageway and the height of the trees the road has to be closed in full rather than a single lane.

The closure is permitted between 8am and 5pm for each day but may on occasion be shorter. The road will reopen when the contractors leave the site each evening. In addition, while the work is scheduled for five days, it is hoped to be less; significant contingency for bad weather, break downs and other delays is built in. 

Any closure on a road like Park Lane will be disruptive, but hopefully scheduling this in half term and delivering the works promptly will minimise this.