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.

A new Cabinet

As reported in my previous post, in spite of the Conservative group achieving a big victory in the County elections, we lost a number of valued colleagues, including three Cabinet Members - Richard Long (Education), Michael Payne (Highways and Transport) and Mike Whiting (Economic Development). All three had made a strong contribution to the Cabinet and to the Council and will be very much missed.

I therefore spent part of last week - in addition to, among other things, meeting almost all of the 23 new Conservative Members of the Council - assembling a new Cabinet. Shellina Prendergast, already a Cabinet Member, has moved to take on the Education portfolio, and three new Cabinet Members (David Brazier, Bryan Sweetland and Derek Murphy) have taken up posts. The full Cabinet is:

Roger Gough - Leader

Peter Oakford – Deputy Leader, Cabinet Member for Finance, Corporate and Traded Services

Clair Bell – Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health

David Brazier – Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport

Sue Chandler – Cabinet Member for Integrated Children’s Services

Mike Hill – Cabinet Member for Community and Regulatory Services

Tony Hills* – Cabinet Member for Environment

Derek Murphy – Cabinet Member for Economic Development

Shellina Prendergast – Cabinet Member for Education and Skills

Bryan Sweetland – Cabinet Member for Communications, Engagement, People and Partnerships

* Tony Hills, previously Deputy Cabinet Member for Environment, is appointed until 18 June, the day after the special election in Elham Valley, the Division held by Susan Carey, Cabinet Member for Environment in the previous Cabinet. The election was postponed because of the death of one of the candidates during the campaign. A further decision will be made once the result of that election is known

You can find KCC’s press release about the new Cabinet here.

Election results

Thank you to the voters of Sevenoaks North and Darent Valley who returned me for another term as County Councillor last Thursday. The result was declared at the conclusion of the count on Friday afternoon. Here are the figures:

Roger Gough (Conservative)      3,491 (64.3%)

Michael Barker (Green)                   691 (12.7%)

David Griffiths (Labour)                  625 (11.5%)

Tristan Ward (Lib Dem)                   619 (11.4%)

Turnout, at 34.0%, was up a little on four years ago. 

I was delighted with this result; my share of the vote was almost exactly the same as four years ago, and I am proud to go on representing the area that I love to live in. 

Similarly, the overall County Council election results were a big success for the Conservative Group which I lead. The Conservatives secured 61 out of the 80 seats being contested (the 81st, Elham Valley, will have a special election on 17 June because of the death of the Labour candidate during the campaign); this is a net reduction of 5 from the high water mark of 2017.  The Conservative share of the vote was similarly almost in line with four years ago (49% compared with 50%) and the county saw fewer Conservative losses than most other parts of the south east.

You can find full details of the election results on the excellent page on the County Council’s website. A video of my immediate reaction to the results is here.

There was more movement in seats and voting patterns than the headline figures indicate. The Conservatives gained four seats not held in 2017 (in Ashford, Gravesend, Hythe and Maidstone) but lost nine. These losses included three Cabinet Members: Michael Payne (Highways) and Richard Long (Education) lost to the Greens in Tonbridge, and Mike Whiting (Economic Development) to the Swale Independents in Swale West. Other losses included Margaret Crabtree (Deputy Cabinet Member for Finance) in Sevenoaks Town and Michael Northey (Vice-Chairman of the Council) in Canterbury South, both to the Liberal Democrats. A number of those who lost were friends as well as colleagues. 

The results in Kent partly reflect local factors; we certainly stood proudly on our record and our plans for the County.  However, they also match some of the trends seen nationally from ‘Super Thursday’, including the Conservative ‘bounce’ from the successful vaccination programme; the continuing change in composition of Conservative support; the travails that the Labour Party, like so many European centre left parties is undergoing; and the rise of Greens and Independents.

My first task now is to assemble a new Cabinet, and I will make an announcement on that in the coming days. After that, the policy and decisions in tray - relating to post-Covid recovery, the quality of life in the county and major national policy initiatives - is huge. Watch this space.

Out and about 2021

In previous election years - such as 2013 and 2017 - I have recorded something of the campaign. As in the past, one of the really positive features of this is to get around the Division in all its beauty amid spring weather. Perhaps best is the views that you get from high points such as Well Hill, the top of South Darenth or (not quite so high up) roads such as Sparepenny Lane between Farningham and Eynsford. I have put a couple of pictures of this attached to this post.

The big difference this time is that as Leader of the Council and of its Conservative Group, I have a much bigger responsibility to support other candidates, and so Out and About has also meant different parts of the county (this morning, for example, I was in Dover). You can find videos with local candidates bin various parts of the County on my Facebook page. 

You can also find there a video about the Conservative administration’s plans for economic, social and environmental recovery in Kent, and my video on why I am standing in Darent Valley. 

Goldsel Road works to go ahead in May: details

The signs are up for works and road closures on Goldsel Road in Crockenhill in May. Because this involves works by both Kent County Council and Highways England, there are a number of different elements to the programme.

From Wednesday 12 May, KCC will carry out night time works to resurface Goldsel Road from Station Road in Swanley to the A20 bridge. This will require night time closures of the road, with works taking place from 8pm to 6am for seven nights, excluding the Saturday and Sunday nights (15 - 16 May). These works should be complete by 6am on Friday 21 May.

On the same day (21 May), at 9PM Highways England will begin work on the bridge structures, removing expansion and mechanical bridge joints and replacing the water proofing on the bridge. All this is necessary to support the milling and resurfacing work(followed by replacement road markings) that KCC’s contractors will be carrying out on the bridge, also over the weekend.

As a result, there will be a full road closure on Goldsel Road over that entire weekend (from the evening of 21 May to 6am on Monday 24 May).

For the rest of that week, Highways England will be working to replace the bridge joints; this will again be overnight working from 8pm to 6am, to be completed by 6am on Saturday 29 May. I have seen notifications of a possible second complete weekend road closure (29-31 May) but I understand that this is purely a contingency arrangement and the HE works should be done by first thing on the Saturday morning.

At the end of all this, we should see a much better and restored surface on the Goldsel Road bridge - something that has been wanted by residents, and has been in preparation by KCC and HE for some time.

Road closure in Park Lane

Park Lane, Seal, will be closed tomorrow for up to a day at the junctions of Blackhall Lane and St Julians Road. This is to enable Kent Highways to carry out drainage works; in particular, cleansing in the area around the school. Park Lane was closed last week for ditching works but these works are being carried out separately.

Franks Lane: finishing the job

Following the closure of Franks Lane, Horton Kirby, for resurfacing and carriageway markings (now carried out) on 9 and 10 April, there will be a further closure (for up to three days) from this Wednesday, 14 April. 

Once more, this will be a closure of the entire road and is to enable replacement and enhancement of signage for the bridge, as described in my post of last week.