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).

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.