Furious Reaction to Government Decision on Kent Local Government Reorganisation

Responding to news that the Government has decided that Kent will be divided into four new unitary authorities, Tim Prater, a Kent County and Folkestone and Hythe District Councillor, has called the decision banana's.

Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary Steve Reed has chosen an option, known as 4b, which comprises new authorities in the north, west, mid/south Kent and east.

Option 4b would be made up of: Dartford, Gravesham and Medway in the north; Sevenoaks, Tonbridge and Malling, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells in the west; Swale, Ashford and Folkestone and Hythe in the middle of Kent and Canterbury, Thanet and Dover in the east.

Tim said:

"For over a year, councils across Kent have been distracted by the time wasting mess that is Local Government Reorganisation, but looking and different models, evaluating and submitting for the Government to make a final decision on which one to choose.

"And then they choose a model that puts Folkestone & Hythe into a Mid Kent that not one single F&H district councillor supported in November last year. There was a big majority in favour of 3B (creating an East Kent of F&H, D&D, Ashford, Canterbury and Thanet) and at least one person supporting 3 of the other options. No-one supported 4b. No-one.

“If that's local decision making and devolution, I'm a Swale Banana.”

"Folkestone and Hythe have few educational, health, policing, business, infrastructure, transport or social care links with Sittingbourne, Sheppey and Faversham. If even takes an age to get between them on public transport. That's no denigration on those places - I'm sure they feel the same about us - but we will all have different priorities and different needs. We have no shared common identity. I really can't see a way to build one."

"You could build a rationale around an East Kent Coast Unitary, even a Channel Gateway one, uniting Folkestone & Hythe, Dover and Ashford. They would allow you to have a proper strategic response to tackling Operation Brock, Dover TAP, EES chaos and more. But no - these plans split the cross channel routes into different authorities, and cut across all sorts of service delivery boundaries in Kent - Policing, NHS, Further Education… the list goes on.

“This decision has been forced on our area by someone in Westminster with clearly either no idea about our area, or no concern for it.”