Drainage works on the A225

Drainage work is set to be carried out on the A225 between Shoreham and Eynsford tonight. Recent bouts of heavy rainfall have led to flooding and dangerous amounts of water in several places on the carriageway, in particular by the railway bridge near Preston Farm. 

Contractors did undertake works pre Christmas (21 December) but these did not deliver the desired result, and so Kent Highways drainage officers have required more works. At least two of the key sites are being worked on tonight, and I will update when I have further information.

Councillor Cameron Beart

This morning I got the awful news that Cameron Beart, Kent County Councillor for Sheppey, had died suddenly. He was 31. 

Cameron was elected to the County Council in May 2021. He was utterly rooted in the Island, and deeply proud of it. He also served on Swale Borough Council and was Deputy Mayor at Queensborough Town Council.

He was deeply concerned to boost educational opportunities for young people on Sheppey and was a constant and strong community champion - as seen last summer when he and his County Division colleague, Andy Booth, put in a huge effort to support local people when Southern Water’s systems failed and brought huge distress and disruption to residents.

Our statement and tribute from KCC is here. It is hard to fully take in the sudden death of a young man, or to comprehend his family’s grief and loss. That loss is also felt by friends, fellow councillors and the community he was so proud to represent. RIP.

Levelling Up Fund: good news for Kent

This morning the Department of Levelling Up, Homes and Communities (DLUHC) announced awards under round 2 of the Levelling Up Fund - and it was good news for Kent.

As a County Council, KCC was able to submit one bid – and this proved to be very successful. The Dover Access Improvements scheme secured £45 million in funding. This is designed to improve the flow of traffic through the port of Dover, addressing at least part of the problems that have dogged the county for years and currently seem whenever Operation Brock has to be triggered.

The scheme involves extensive reconfiguration and investment in the port of Dover site. In particular, there will be changes to the order of the various border and customs controls, which are currently set on the basis of arrangements of two decades ago and can be much improved.

There will also be an increase in the buffer zone, removing a lot of traffic from the roads, as well as a doubling in the number of border control posts and a new dock exit route. The latter will help particularly with vehicles that have to be turned away, for example because the paperwork has not been completed.

As I have emphasised in a number of interviews today, this is not a silver bullet; there are a number of measures that need to be taken to ensure that our borders operate effectively, and the damage done to communities and businesses in Dover, East Kent and the county as a whole is ended. It is nonetheless a major step forward. There are still some further parts of approval process to be gone through with government, and the scheme will then take a number of years to implement, not least because it will have to be phased while the port and the border systems continue to operate.

Four other schemes across Kent, put forward by District and Borough councils, were successful: in Dover (so doubly good news for the town and district), in Canterbury, in Swale and in Folkestone and Hythe. All told, this represents £123 million in government investment in Kent. 

Although some have criticised awards to sites in London and the Southeast, DLUHC Secretary Michael Gove points out that proportionately more of the fund still goes to areas such as the North West; and, in an interview on the Radio 4 Today Programme this morning, he cited Kent, and the Kent coast in particular, as an example of an area in the Southeast with significant social and economic needs. We agree; in KCC‘s strategic statement, Framing Kent’s Future, our first priority was Levelling Up Kent. Today marks a good start.

You can find the KCC media release about the funding award here.

KCC launches community services consultation

Kent County Council has today (17 January) launched a 10 week consultation  on the future of our community services and buildings. This includes areas such as children’s centres and youth centres, adult education, some public health services and community services for adults with learning difficulties.

This reflects extensive work by KCC to model new ways to deliver these services; this will require fewer buildings, focused where they are most needed, a greater reliance on outreach and in a number of cases co-location of services. The proposals, if enacted,  would deliver - reflecting the severe financial pressures which KCC is experiencing - savings of some £6 million, though this comes after reinvestment of £4 million in improved outreach. The proposals also aim to tackle the unsustainable maintenance backlog on the KCC community estate, much of which is open for only a limited number of hours per week.

The consultation, which includes drop-in events, runs until 26 March. The details, including the link to the consultation, are set out in this KCC media release.