Lib Dems Disagree Over Changes

The Liberal Democrat Leader of Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, Ben Chapelard, has welcomed as "exciting" aspects of the radical changes planned for Kent's local government.

Ben Chapelard praised what he called the “real opportunity to unleash the power of local government” and said the changes would "simplify things for residents".

Cllr Chapelard also looked forward to devolution which he said would mean Kent's mayor having more money and powers (that currently sit in Westminster) over transport, skills, education, environment, housing and health.

By contrast another local Liberal Democrat, Richard Streatfeild, who's a Kent County Councillor and Sevenoaks District Councillor expressed scepticism about the abolition of the current system.

They both gave interviews to West Kent Radio following news that Kent has applied to be included in the government’s first round of "devolution", which would mean a mayor for Kent and replacing the county's existing councils with just 3 new unitary councils. Parish and Town Councils wouldn't be affected.

Richard Streatfeild (pictured below) from Sevenoaks called Labour’s hopes of making billions of pounds of efficiency savings as “for the birds.”

One big unknown is what will happen to the debts that some existing councils have built up, when the new councils are formed covering much bigger areas.

Tunbridge Wells Borough Council and Tonbridge and Malling Borough Councils both have no debt. But Sevenoaks has £12 million of debt and Maidstone has £ 5 million of debt.

The new ‘West Kent’ Unitary Authority is likely to merge all four councils.

When questioned on the health of his budget, Cllr Chapelard said: “We’re presenting a balanced budget now. We’ve managed to close that quarter-of-a-million-pound gap".

The Council Leader said: “Taxpayers of other areas won’t be subsidising any budgets of any other councils because you’ll have a new council that will have its own budget and that will be paid across all of the taxpayers in that new area.”

However, he continued: “One of our big concerns is Kent County Council has a debt of £1 billion, so do the new councils start paying off that debt; or do we get a clean slate to get on and deliver what we want?  Medway council has a debt of a quarter-of-a-billion as well - so who picks up the tab for that?”

Listen to Cllr Chapelard here:


Cllr Chapelard insisted: “We want to set up these councils to succeed. Not have a ball and chain at their feet with someone else’s debt. Nothing is decided yet. There will have to be conversations.”

“I think we’ve been under financial constraints for far too long and we’re constantly trying to see what we can keep going, rather than do new things.”

“I think it will simplify things for residents. It’s frustrating as a councillor when people get in touch and [you] say: I’m sorry, this is the wrong council. You need to go to [another] council because of the three tiers of local governments. I think we can deliver better services.”

"There will be efficiencies by merging councils together in terms of structure and so on, but I think our frustration is as councillors we’re elected to do things, and we look at the coffers and there's not as much money as we want.”

“I think that will be better spent not saving it but spending it back into new councils and elected Mayors.”

But Cllr Streatfeild from Sevenoaks told us: “I disagree that it [reorganising local government] will save money. Certainly, the internal auditor at Kent County Council gave a very clear brief last year when he said that there is no unitary authority that has saved money for the taxpayer across the United Kingdom. So we are reorganising not on the basis of saving money. I think we are reorganising for, for two reasons.”

“Firstly, because the Labour government have come to a conclusion that they can only deliver the milestones that they want to deliver by concentrating power in a mayor for Kent. And that involves, housing, transport and healthcare. Those three things are the most difficult because if they're subject to local democracy then they’re subject to lots of delays in people's opinions and scrutiny. Whereas if they're concentrated in the hands of a mayor then that individual is only accountable once every four years and can make that make the hard decisions to deliver on those targets.”

“Local government has grown up for the last 50 years and they have got to a way of working that is reasonably efficient. They’ve gone through big efficiency savings from 2010 onwards under austerity.”

“In a budget in Kent County Council of £1.6 billion there is only £80 million of discretionary spend. In percentage terms that’s less than 1% of the budget. All the rest is delivering statutory services.”

“Those services are going to have to be delivered by the unitary authorities come what may. The idea that you’re going to find a miracle £2bn worth of savings is for the birds".

“There may be some advantage in rationalising some buildings and potentially some bureaucracy, but in terms of delivery of service, very little to be gained.”

“The decision from Kent County Council was to go at full speed into this new kind of authority. Liberal Democrats have two difficulties with this".

"Firstly, we have a difficulty in principle with the mayor overall. But we also have a difficulty with the accelerator pedal being pushed so hard for what we see is no good reason. The arguments were made that; we would miss out, that the government bribes on offer for speedy resolution of all this looks like political expediency to us".

"There are going to be some casualties by doing this quickly and those casualties are going to be some of the most vulnerable people in our community.”

Parties in Kent are split on the issue of deferring elections. Roger Gough’s Conservatives have opened the door to the possibility of postponing County Council ballots until the new local government structures are in place.

Vince Maple’s Labour and Co-Operatives in Medway disagree. They acknowledge the need for a one year deferral working on the provision that a new authority is set up in 2028.

The government’s starting point is for all elections to go ahead unless there is strong justification, declaring: “We will consider requests and only postpone elections where there is a clear commitment to delivering both reorganisation and devolution to the most ambitious timeframe.”

Both Liberal Democrat councillors remain determined to ensure that local elections go ahead before anything is settled.

Cllr Chapelard said: “I think it’s important for a council to have a mandate from residents to negotiate a devolution deal with government and negotiate on local government reorganisation.”

“My preference would be for the elections to go ahead as planned until the new councils and the mayor is elected.”

“I certainly can’t see a reason for it to be delayed by more than one year. We did under covid because it wasn’t safe to do [elections].”

Cllr Streatfeild says that this new mayor will “only be held accountable by central government because that is where their money is coming from, not generally from the taxpayer in the new unitary authorities.”

He warned: “One of the risks of the mayor is that, if you get a wrong-un then you’re living with that person for the next four years. Whereas, in a council, that leader can be removed either by the party or by the council.”

“We want to see democracy at the lowest levels and that means bringing people or devolving decisions down, as close as possible, to the people who those decisions affect and those defect decisions on health care and housing and so on our for the should be for the local community to take not for some Unitary Authority in West Kent.”

“It’s a very big county. It has a lot of different problems and those are best sorted out, I think, by people who are democratically elected from those areas. Not by one individual representing the whole lot.”

“There is also the reality this is a democratically elected government, and they have chosen to go down this path. We are going to have to lean into this because we want to fight the mayoral election.”

“I think that the difficulty is the transition between what is currently done by the district and what is done by the county.”

“Especially in adult, social care and special educational needs because Kent has got a very patchy network with regards to special educational needs provision and adult social care provision.”

“Lots of care homes are in Thanet and the North and the East. Not as many in the West.”

“Particularly, I would say, unaccompanied asylum-seeking children which the county has taken the government to court over not giving the right level of support for this. That is all going to be focused in the east of the county and they will need a considerable amount of support.”

Asked whether he has ambitions to become the Kent Mayor, Cllr Chapelard replied: “I don’t think it’s going to be me.”

Cllr Streatfeild similarly dissuaded rumours: “Not currently. We will go through a process, as we have started to do, to find the best person to be the candidate.”

Listen to Cllr Streatfield here: