The Space Wagon Takes Off

Congratulations to The Space at the Riverside Club for a wonderful launch of its Community Transport service this morning. This comprises a growing network of volunteer drivers, using their own cars, but also a bookable wheelchair accessible vehicle: the Space Wagon, the inspired winner of a competition to name it.

This builds on the remarkable work of Adrian Elms, Steve Boddington and everyone at The Space in combating isolation. Access to transport plays a vital role in this, yet in Kent (and across the country, especially outside the big cities) the bus industry is under severe pressure. This is why at Kent County Council we have stepped up our support for Community Transport. Last year we allocated over £500,000 to a dozen such schemes across the County. The Space was one of these, being awarded £44,000 in capital and £3,000 in start up costs. I was delighted to be able to support the successful bid.

Steve and Adrian both spoke at this morning’s launch, along with Cllr Lawrence Ball (Chairman of Sevenoaks District Council), Sally Coston of Eynsford Village Society and me. And the ribbon was cut by Mrs Diana Grant.

I was struck this morning by Steve Boddington’s remark that the focus on transport came out of the work that The Space was already doing, picking up another important need. I was also reminded that, while public sector bodies (including KCC) are financially very constrained, grants that are quite small in relation to our total budgets can help community initiatives like The Space Wagon to thrive.

To begin with at least, The Space’s community transport initiative will focus on Eynsford, Farningham and Lullingstone but will hopefully be able to extend to a wider area, the more so given the importance of access to medical appointments and the coming together of the Farningham and South Darenth practices.

EES: a welcome delay

It has been the week of two delays. The first - that of a decision on Lower Thames Crossing until next May - which came on Monday, was deeply disappointing. The second - that of the introduction of the EU’s new external frontier checks, the Entry Exit System (EES) - is likely to be positive for Kent residents. 

EES was scheduled to be introduced - after many delays and falls starts - at 2 am on Sunday 10 November. However, late on Thursday afternoon, a month before the planned commencement of EES, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson announced a further delay, stating that 10 November would not go ahead and that there would be “a phased approach” to introduction. This reflected major Member States, including France, Germany and the Netherlands reporting that they were not ready to go ahead, citing technological problems and in particular the interface with EU-wide systems.

In Kent, we were not banking on this delay, even as it came to look more and more likely. We have been raising the issue for years, and in January I gave evidence to a parliamentary committee about the risks that EES introduction posed to Kent, in particular spillover of delays in the highly constrained Eastern Docks at the Port of Dover onto the county’s roads. In July, Leaders of councils in Kent came together to highlight the issue to the new government. Ministers have provided additional funding to the points of departure, works have begun to develop sites at the Western Docks and partners in the Kent and Medway Resilience Forum have developed extensive contingency plans. 

Nonetheless, the delay is helpful, giving more time for some of these projects to develop and for discussions with the French authorities over a pragmatic approach to the introduction of the new system. While the approach to introduction of EES is now unclear, it may give scope for a gradual approach (enabling, for example, first registrations to be undertaken at quieter times only, easing the whole process of introduction of the new system) or perhaps even a move to operate remote registration from the start (which neither systems nor regulations are currently set up for). 

The announcement generated a lot of media interest, and I gave interviews to BBC South East, ITV Meridian and Heart/ LBC (I had already spoken to BBC Radio Kent on Thursday morning before the Commission’s announcement). You can also find our media release about the delay here. We will now await more details but, for the present at least, this is good news.