KCC annual meeting

Kent County Council held our Annual Council Meeting today: our first meeting of the new council, and our first face to face meeting since February 2020. 

This had both pluses and minuses. It was good for both new and returning councillors to meet in person, with the sense of companionship (cross-party) that it engenders. Yet with social distancing still required at a time when national government has refused to renew the regulations enabling virtual meetings - in the teeth of strong urging from local authorities, including us, to renew them - it is not possible to hold Full Council meetings in our Council Chamber. 

And so, at a significant cost in officer time, and with a direct hiring charge cost to the council tax payer, we have had to seek other venues. At the last minute, we had to move from our originally agreed venue at the University of Kent to Mote Hall Leisure Centre in Maidstone.

This made for a rather odd experience. Sitting in rows in a large sports hall was reminiscent of school exams. I delivered my Leader’s speech looking at a wall. The acoustics were erratic, producing one or two hiatuses in the process. Yet overall the meeting worked, and it is vastly to the credit of our officer team, headed by our General Counsel Ben Watts, that it did so, even after the need for a handbrake turn in the last few days. 

And the meeting itself? We bade goodbye to Graham Gibbens, who had served the Council well as Chairman (after a long career as Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care) in a difficult year, and elected the experienced and popular Ann Allen as the new Chairman. She and the new Vice-Chairman, Lesley Game, will make a strong team. I was elected Leader for the council term, and in my Leader’s report set out our plans for the next four years, addressing:

- Post-Covid recovery (economic, social and environmental)

- Quality of life in the county (as set out in our original, pre-Covid Five Year Plan of March 2020)

- Setting out our position in relation to government initiatives in health, social care and transport

- Being prepared to tackle ‘events’ such as the continuing evolution of Brexit transition and increasing numbers of arrivals of Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children

Because of the venue, the meeting could not be webcast live, but hopefully the recording should be available on the KCC website shortly.