The future of Kent’s bus services

Kent County Council is asking residents to help shape the future of bus services in Kent. 

The National Bus Strategy, launched in March, requires Local Transport Authorities such as KCC to work with bus operators to produce a Bus Service Improvement Plan to set out a vision and broad plan for better bus services across the county. This plan, the first iteration of which must be submitted by October, will provide the basis for securing funding from government to deliver its priorities. Detailed service plans and standards will be set out in an Enhanced Partnership Scheme, which must be in place by April 2022. KCC has already issued a statutory notice indicating its wish to establish an Enhanced Partnership Scheme.

As these plans are worked up, the County Council is asking for residents’ views. This will start with a two-item questionnaire, to be completed by 25 July, but you will also be able to subscribe to the page and be part of further, more detailed engagement as we move towards developing the Bus Service Improvement Plan and Enhanced Partnership Scheme. 

You can find the KCC media release on this here, with a link to the engagement page. The National Bus Strategy is a major initiative with potentially significant implications for Kent. There are always risks, and plenty of unknowns, but opportunities too. 

A new (renewed) Environment Cabinet Member

At the County Council elections on 6 May, 80 out of 81 Divisions elected County Councillors. The exception was Elham Valley, where the election was delayed as a result of the death of one of the candidates early in the campaign. The special election for Elham Valley took place last Thursday, 17 June.

Since 2005 Elham Valley has been represented by Susan Carey (pictured with me during the campaign in Hawkinge) who has also held a number of posts in the KCC Cabinet, in the last eighteen months as Cabinet Member for Environment. However, with the delay to the Elham Valley election, she ceased to be a Member of the County Council in May and so for that period was unable to serve as a Cabinet Member either. The count for Elham Valley took place on Friday and Susan was re-elected with just over 50% of the vote - a richly deserved outcome, since she has not only made a significant contribution County-wide but has been a dedicated local Member (characteristically, after her re-election, she was out on a community litter-pick yesterday). 

I was delighted to reappoint Susan to her Environment role as soon as her re-election was confirmed. She had a strong and committed Deputy Cabinet Member in Tony Hills, and Tony did an excellent job standing in as Cabinet Member in the weeks between the County elections and Susan's return. Tony continues as Deputy Cabinet Member. He and Susan are a very strong team; I created a dedicated Environment portfolio when I became Leader to reinforce our commitment to addressing issues of climate change, biodiversity, environmental enhancement and resilience, and they have taken it forward with great energy and commitment. It is very good for Kent that they will continue to do so.

You can find KCC’s press release on the election result and Susan’s reappointment here.

East Hill Road - latest on works

Over the last couple of weeks I have had contact from residents and District Councillors regarding proposed works in East Hill Road and how access would be managed during the closure. (Declaring an interest : I am a resident). What follows is a slightly complicated story, but here is the latest position.

With regard to the highways-related closure of East Hill Road, this was originally scheduled to take place on 14-18 June (ie starting next Monday) between 7PM and 1AM each night. The closure is part of the KCC ‘pothole blitz’, although in this case that is something of a misnomer, since these are quite large-scale surface improvements (as are very much needed in the road). 

The contractor is required to seek to ensure that residents have access to their properties during the closure, though exactly how this will work in practice will depend on the state of the works, time taken to move plant and the like. There are inevitably difficulties with carrying out full width works on a No Through Road which nonetheless serves quite a large number of properties, but the plan seeks to minimise them. Emergency services are made aware of the works and will of course be given priority if they need to access the road. 

On 1 June, some residents were notified of an impending emergency closure, also of East Hill Road, by South East Water to repair a water leak (again, clearly needed to address a very evident problem in the road). Kent Highways took this up and it was agreed that the works would be postponed until the following week (week commencing 7 June, ie the week just ending) and then for the works to take place on a Sunday. 

Initially it appeared that the proposed date was this coming Sunday, 13 June, but it is now understood that South East Water propose to carry this out on the following Sunday, the 20th. These would be a temporary restoration, with permanent works taking place a week later. As with the pothole blitz works, every effort will be made to preserve access for residents, and with priority for emergency services. 

However, this means that the Kent Highways works will now have to be postponed, since the south-east water improvements clearly need to take place first. A new date will be set, but with the works to take place with the various measures to maintain the greatest possible access as before.

I will update further as soon as I know more.

Asylum seeking children: Kent under pressure (again)

Once more, Kent faces big challenges reflecting the large scale arrival of unaccompanied under 18s claiming asylum - unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UASC), who are among the arrivals in small boats crossing the Channel. 

As of the end of May, 242 UASC young people had been taken into the County Council’s care so far this year. This is up sharply on the same period last year (when 189 arrived), which nonetheless saw the council having by mid-August to suspend delivering its statutory obligations and taking these young people into care.

Overall, KCC has (or had at the start of yesterday) 403 UASC in its care, as well as around 1100 care leavers of UASC background. Under the National Transfer Scheme for UASC, introduced under some of the provisions of the Immigration Act 2016, no local authority is expected to have UASC of more than 0.07% of its child population in its care. For Kent that figure is 231. 

Pressures on Kent services are now growing, with reception centre capacity almost entirely occupied, social work caseloads rising and a need for foster care placements (including some outside the county) as a result of a higher proportion of under 16s than in the past. 

Two developments follow from this. The first is that we are now close to a position where, as was the case last summer, I may get advice from our Director of Children’s Services that we cannot safely discharge our responsibilities and we should no longer collect UASC young people from the port. The second is that Kent County Council has issued a Letter Before Action to the Home Office, which is the first formal step towards a possible Judicial Review, relating to the Home Secretary’s unwillingness to use the powers she has under the Immigration Act to direct (‘mandate’) local authorities to accept UASC young people under the National Transfer Scheme. We have long argued is essential to ensure a robust and equitable scheme that takes the pressure off port of entry authorities such as Kent.

Inevitably this generated a lot of media interest yesterday; among the interviews I gave was to Radio 4’s Today Programme (interview starts after 1 hour and 16 minutes) and BBC national news (6PM bulletin, report starts after 21 minutes).