Co-Chair of Kent Greens, Cllr Laura Manston, has spoken out against the government’s chaotic plans for local government reorganisation.

Cllr Manston (Sevenoaks District Council) said, “Labour’s White Paper claims to give more powers to Kent to improve efficiency and save money. Greens strongly agree that local government needs an overhaul, and much better funding. However, it must be done democratically and after full consultation.

Labour’s manifesto made no reference to the plans in the White Paper which they tried to rush through under the radar.

Conservatives at KCC, and Labour in Medway, agreed on January 10th to abolish Kent’s councils, without any proper plan for their replacement. They also voted to cancel the May elections. This would have kept them in charge of deciding how any new unitary councils will be formed without democratic accountability.”

Leader of the Greens at Kent County Council, Cllr Rich Lehman (Swale Borough Council) says, “The plan to impose a Mayor in Kent is now on hold. Yet Kent is still being forced to go through reorganisation. The District Council Network has exposed the claim that unitary councils of over 500,000 people are better as being without evidence, yet Kent councils are still expected to present a case for three or four unitaries by March 21st, prior to the May elections.”

Cllr Stuart Jeffery (Green, Maidstone Borough Council) says, “Devolving power from Westminster is a good thing but it seems that for Kent it comes at a price, the centralisation of council powers, and with no savings to address the financial crisis in local government. If we have to have bigger councils then they must work for local people and the councillors need to be accessible. Any change to unitaries must be back up by improvements in funding from national government or it will simply spread the crisis further and deeper.”

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Maidstone Green Party Cllr Stephen Thompson said “The idea that democracy can be cancelled to speed up devolution is simply ludicrous. The devolution changes, including abolishing county and district councils, require a democratic mandate. Cancelling the elections gives a democratic deficit.

“We need councillors in KCC who have a mandate from the people of Kent to make the difficult decisions that we face. Democracy is essential and the May elections must go ahead.”

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Cllr Stuart Jeffery (Green Leader of Maidstone Borough Council): “It’s centralisation of power, not devolution. It’s less democratic and it’s a retrograde move for the county, so we will need to ensure that we take the rough edges off any changes and ensure that we get the best possible outcome for residents.

“While I welcome the potential additional funding and control for Kent, this seems to come with serious strings attached. It puts a huge amount of power in the hands of a single person rather than a team that represents the people of Kent.

“The scrapping of districts and county councils with the formation of unitaries, means fewer councillors who will be harder to reach and harder to engage by residents. I fear that national government is getting rid of the best aspects of local government.”

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Cllr Stuart Jeffery said, “We are all really grateful for the organisers and all who took part in Maidstone’s first Pride. It was wonderful to see so many people celebrating diversity. LGBTQIA+ people still face discrimination but events such as Pride have helped to reduce this over many decades.”

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The new Cabinet will deliver a significant programme of change with a real focus on preparing for climate change, reducing pollution, making our communities healthier and stronger, and delivering affordable housing, particularly social housing.

The new Leader of the Council, Cllr Stuart Jeffery (Green and Independent Alliance) said, “It will be an honour to lead the council. There is a huge amount of work to do to reduce inequalities, ensure there is enough social housing, to reduce pollution and ensure that the Borough improves its resilience for the future.”

The new Cabinet member for Environmental Services and Deputy Leader of the Council, Cllr Clive English (Liberal Democrat) said, “The challenge to overcome years of Conservative neglect of our Borough is huge, but I am confident that together we will rise to the task of making Maidstone a place to be proud of.”

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Across Maidstone as a whole the Greens claimed 22% of all votes cast in the Borough, the second highest vote share. The only negative was one loss in Headcorn and Sutton Valence, where Derek Eagle narrowly missed out, where Ward boundary changes meant he was beaten by only 2% of the vote.

Cllr. Stuart Jeffery, Leader of the Green and Independent Alliance at Maidstone Borough Council; “I’m delighted with these results, it demonstrates that the hard work we’ve been putting in across the Borough has been recognised, and that people are fed up of the status quo. To gain eight new seats is incredible, in fact it’s the third highest gain nationwide.

Now we have the difficult task of unpicking the mess of the last few years, starting with forming an administration.”

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Green Cllr Stuart Jeffery, “The change over to SUEZ has been a nightmare, with thousands of bin collections missed or late across the Borough. At one point 30% of collections were missed or late: nearly one in three.  Bins have been full to overflowing and so waste is being spread about by various animals.

“Council officers are working hard to make sure as much as collected as possible and most councillors are fielding complaint after complaint but Cllr Garten, the cabinet member responsible, seems to have gone into hiding since he told us that ‘things are in hand’ a couple of weeks ago. There has been no public statement from the Conservative leader of the Council either.

“This debacle sits with Cllr Garten and he needs to take responsibility for getting it sorted.  Yet he seems to be missing in action.”

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Green Cllr Stuart Jeffery, “We have an excellent chance of being the biggest group on the council. We are focussing our efforts on places where we came first or second in recent years, and there are a lot of those.

“Maidstone needs a change, it needs councillors with fresh ideas and an eye to the future. We are all tired of the business as usual approach here. We are tired of the failure to deliver a plan for affordable and social housing that protects farm and woodland and we are tired of the gridlock that curses the town. We need better.

“If now isn’t the right time to vote Green, I’m not sure when will be.”

Full list of Maidstone’s Green candidates is available here: https://maidstone.greenparty.org.uk/candidates-2024-2/

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Cllr Stuart Jeffery, Green Party and group leader for the Green Independent Alliance on Maidstone Borough Council, said, “Building huge numbers of large unsustainable houses on much needed farmland is fundamentally wrong. There is a paltry amount of funding for infrastructure including roads, schools and railways stations, just 3% of what is needed.

“We learnt at the last minute that the county council is also opposed to the plan.

“There are no supporting strategies, no sustainable transport plan, no town centre plan, no design and sustainability plan and no Gypsy, Roma and Traveller plan. The Conservatives’ Local Plan is a disaster and we hope to lead an urgent review of the plan after the May elections.”

How individual councillors voted:

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