West Kent Unitary Authority Nearer

Council leaders in Kent have agreed on two local government reform options, with both of them involving merging together Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells and Maidstone.

Under the reforms, Kent’s 14 elected councils, including Medway Council and Kent County Council (KCC), will effectively have to abolish themselves and be replaced by a smaller number of much larger unitary authorities.

Council leaders have spent much of the summer thrashing out acceptable options going forward.

The two to go out to consultation will be 3A and 4B out of seven possibles.

Option 3A would consist of:
West – Sevenoaks, Tonbridge & Malling, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells;
North – Medway, Dartford, Gravesham and Swale.
East – Ashford, Folkestone & Hythe, Canterbury and Thanet;

With 4B, the components would be:
West – Sevenoaks, Tonbridge & Malling, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells;
North – Medway, Dartford, Gravesham;
Mid – Folkestone & Hythe, Ashford and Swale;
East – Dover, Canterbury and Thanet.

If Kent County council wishes to take its own single unitary authority (with three assemblies) proposal forward, it will have to self-fund.

Kevin Mills, the Labour leader of Dover District Council, prefers option 4B.

He said: “With a three council unitary, there is still a degree of synergy with us all being coastal communities, so we have more in common in the East Kent triangle.

“At the end of the day, it will not be our decision, it will be decided by the government. There has been no change in the system of local government for 50 years.

“This option will make life simpler for people with each unitary responsible for everything rather than having one council doing one i and another doing something else.

“What we do need is a swift decision because uncertainty doesn’t help anyone.”

Green Party leader of Maidstone Borough Council said the next step is for auditors KPMG to make the business case for the two options as well as putting them forward to relevant council committees.

The deadline to submit the proposals to the local government minister Jim McMahon is November 28.

The County Councils’ Network (CCN), whose 2020 data formed the government’s financial assessment of local government reorganisation’s potential £2.9bn savings over five years, last week cast doubt on the reform’s viability.

Based on updated modelling this year, the CCN now says that £2.9bn saving could only be achieved if all 21 two tier counties – like Kent – each reorganised with a single unitary authority.

The government’s reforms would mean dozens of new unitaries, said the CCN, would end up costing the government hundreds of millions of pounds.

KCC leader Linden Kemkaran’s suggestion of a single authority as an umbrella for three regional assemblies did not make the final cut when council chief met earlier this week.

Cllr Kemkaran has warned the reforms are not likely to be cost-effective.

She said on August 14: “All the other options will cost an absolute fortune to implement, and no one has yet been able to explain to me how that will be paid for. I think the bill will be picked up by the council taxpayers, something I find unacceptable.

“I am determined to do what’s best for Kent, rather than blindly following the government’s instructions and attempting to force a square peg into a round hole.”

The reforms were launched last December by Angela Rayner who resigned this morning as Deputy Prime Minister and as the secretary of state driving forward local government reorganisation. She also resigned as the deputy leader of the Labour Party.

Mrs Rayner had become embroiled in a controversy over under-paying stamp duty for an £800,000 house in Hove.

Most obervers believe that her departure will have little bearing on the progress of council reform.

Cllr Jeffery said: “I suspect the reforms are too far down the track for this to make any difference.”