LED street lighting contract awarded

KCC has awarded the £40 million contract for converting its 118,000 street lights to Light Emitting Diode (LED) technology to Bouygues Energies and Services. The contract award represents another step towards delivering major savings on the County Council's £9.2 million annual spend in street lighting.

The conversion of street lights in residential areas to LED should begin as soon as March. The entire conversion project should be completed in a little over three years, though the residential areas should be complete much sooner than that. It had originally appeared likely that areas that had been the first to be moved to part-night lighting (such as Sevenoaks District) would be the first in line for LED. This now appears less likely, but in any case LED should reach Sevenoaks, including Darent Valley, soon.

The adoption of LED, and the annual savings of up to £5.2 million that it will deliver, will provide the opportunity to revisit the part-night lighting policy. The results of a consultation on a new policy will be discussed at a KCC committee meeting in February.

Flooding on the A225

Many residents have told me of their concerns about flooding on the A225 at the railway bridge between Shoreham and Eynsford (near Preston Hill and Preston Farm). Heavy flooding on a major road by a sharp bend is a clear hazard.

Kent Highways officers have been trying to identify and deal with the problem for some time. Most recently, a CCTV survey on the land near the bridge took place on 4 January; this identified some buried gullies and a buried chamber, but it was not possible to carry out all the work needed on the day. A further survey was undertaken on 22 January. This identified two buried catch pits and a buried soakaway. All of these buried drainage systems have now been opened up.

The system will be cleansed on 4 February, and tests undertaken to determine how effective this is in getting the drainage system to work. If the cleansing is not sufficient, more drastic works will be undertaken. As usual, I will update in a further post when I know more.

Preston Hill sale deferred

While Lullingstone Park is not set for any major changes following the County Council's market engagement process last year, it had appeared to be a different story for another country park in the Darent Valley, Preston Hill between Shoreham and Eynsford. Preston Hill was one of five sites identified (under a different process) for potential disposal in the current financial year, and notices to this effect were published in the local press during the last week. This is a formal notice, not an advertisement for sale; the latter would follow if the County Council were to proceed with the disposal after consultation.

Preston Hill is certainly a very different proposition from Lullingstone; the County Council's reasoning for looking at possible disposal was that it is harder to access and lacks public facilities (including a car park) and so attracts relatively few visitors. This made it a poor fit with the County Council's Country Parks strategy, which aimed to focus resources on sites that are well-used by residents.

At the same time, Preston Hill is an environmentally sensitive site, being part of the Otford to Shoreham Downs Site of Special Scientific Interest, with rare chalk grassland and ancient woodland. This would clearly impose significant obligations on any potential buyer of the site. There is also a historic rifle range on site, which has been restored through a Natural England HLS (Higher Level Stewardship) capital grant and the maintenance of which would need to be ensured.

The County Council has, however, now announced that the disposal process for the five sites is being suspended, pending further consultation with local communities, seeking to ensure "that the sites remain open to the public and are financially viable." This sounds like a very welcome development, and I will post an update if and when I know more.

Boundary Commission: the final verdict

The Local Government Boundary Commission for England has now issued its final recommendations for new Division boundaries for Kent County Council, to come into force at the elections in 2017. They will be laid before Parliament in a draft order in the coming months before being formally adopted.

As I wrote in the autumn, the Boundary Commission revised significantly its earlier proposals for Sevenoaks District. It was already established that, as part of the reduction in size of the County Council from 84 Members to 81, Sevenoaks would lose one Division. It has also long been clear that the undersized Swanley division would have to expand to the South, taking in Christchurch and High Firs polling districts. But in other respects, the Commission's revisions were very significant regarding Darent Valley; bringing Swanley Village back in rather than incorporating it into Swanley, putting transferring Badgers Mount to Sevenoaks West, and expanding a renamed Sevenoaks East and Darent Valley to the south and east as far as Seal.

Following a further consultation, the Commission has stuck with these revised recommendations. Swanley Christchurch and High Firs go into an enlarged Swanley Division, but Swanley Village stays in what will now be the Sevenoaks North & Darent Valley Division. In spite of strong representations to the contrary from the Parish Council and others (including me), Badgers Mount is transferred to the Sevenoaks West Division, which will run down the western County border as far as Westerham. 

All other parishes in the existing Darent Valley will remain in the successor Division, and will be joined in it by Otford, Kemsing and Seal. The result will be a very large Division indeed, in terms both of area (especially north-south) and in terms of electors per County Councillor (at 15,629, the second highest in the County).

You can find full details of the Review, including maps, on the LGBCE's website.

Grammar annexe: on with the work

The three month deadline for a Judicial Review of Education Secretary Nicky Morgan's decision to approve the expansion of Weald of Kent Grammar School on the former Wildernesse School site in Sevenoaks expired last week. Pressure group Comprehensive Future effectively abandoned its JR attempt, alleging that it had not been able to secure the documentation it needed. The County Council's view - and mine - was always that WoK's expansion plan in Sevenoaks were a strong and legally compliant proposal, making the Education Secretary's decision hard to challenge.

As I commented to the Sevenoaks Chronicle, this removes the last legal uncertainty regarding the annexe; work to build it can now go on. We will not instantly see activity taking place on the ground; over the next few months there will need to be some further elaboration of the design, mobilisation of sub-contractors and other essential preparatory work. But there should be work taking place on site from late spring, and that will be needed to deliver the annexe for its opening date of September 2017.

I have long argued that there was both a Sevenoaks problem (lack of grammar provision in an area in which many students pass the Kent Test) and a West Kent problem (the need for more grammar places as part of the response to rising secondary rolls); it is logical to tackle the two problems together. For girls' provision at least, that is now in sight.

Country parks - no change for Lullingstone

Back in the early autumn, there was considerable concern from Parish Councils in Darent Valley over a Prior Information Notice (PIN) issued by Kent County Council relating to the nine principal Country Parks that it operates, among them Lullingstone. The PIN, issued in late July (but only coming to the attention of Parish Councils, and me as a local Member, in September) was to test the market regarding interest from commercial or not for profit operators in operating one or more of these Country Parks, or bringing forward other proposals that could contribute to their better operation.

The concept of some external involvement in Country Parks has been on the table for a number of years, and KCC undertook a service review of Country Parks (as it has of many other services) in 2014. The PIN was one element that emerged from that review, alongside a 2014-17 strategy for Country Parks.
 
The unintentionally late communication of the PIN to Parish Councils - towards the end of the eight-week market testing process - added to local concerns. At the same time, KCC made clear that, at this point, it was committing itself to nothing more than to test the market for ideas. Any significant change arising from this would have been subject to extensive consultation.

I spoke directly with the officers leading the process, and the senior officer involved came to speak to the Lullingstone Liaison Group (which I chair and which brings together three Parish Councils and others with a strong interest in the park) in November.

The outcomes of the PIN were taken to a KCC internal board in December. It can now be confirmed that the County Council has responded to those who expressed an interest in the PIN, and that no organisation expressed an interest in Lullingstone Country Park.

Date set for South Darenth works

As I reported in an earlier post, Kent Highways will be removing an unwanted rumble strip and installing additional bollards in Holmesdale Road, South Darenth. The project is paid for from my Combined Member Fund.

A date for the works, which will require a week's road closure, has been set for 25 January. Given the time of year, there is always some uncertainty because of the weather, but hopefully thus can go ahead.

KCC publishes draft budget

The County Council has published its draft budget for 2016-17, to be put before County Councillors on 11 February.

As in previous years - but perhaps even more so - the key factors shaping the County Council's proposals have been increasing need for social care services, especially for the frail elderly, and reductions in government grant.

The Chancellor's Autumn Statement and Sprending Review in November set out the overall reduction in Revenue Support Grant (the main, non-ring fenced transfer from central to local government) but not how this would affect individual authorities. When these figures were released - as in previous years, just before Christmas - it became clear that shire authorities had suffered much more severe reductions than local government as a whole. For KCC, it was £46 million.

Pressures on adult social care for the coming year amount to £31 million (out of overall pressures of £80 million). As a result of this and the reductions in grant, KCC has had to find around £100 million in savings. It will also have to raise council tax by almost 4%, which raises £22m. In part, this will come from the 1.99% increase that the council is able to undertake without triggering a referendum, in addition, the government - recognising the pressures from demographic change and the National Living Wage on social care expenditure - is allowing councils with social care responsibilities, such as KCC, to levy a further 2% 'precept'.

Taken together, this will mean just over £40 extra on a Band C property, and of course more for higher banded properties. The Council is proposing this with considerable reluctance, but it is having to do so at a time when local government continues to deliver very large savings.

You can find out more about the council's proposals, including links to more detailed pages here.