Land Drainage
As Chair of the Environment Committee at KCC, I have been in touch with the Lower Medway Internal Drainage Board to investigate whether it would be viable to convert land currently drained using drainage ditches into salt marsh or some other habitat with a high biodiversity value.
Swale’s estuary habitats are vitally important to the conservation of wildlife on a European scale, but this is not only important for the environment, it could also reduce future flood defence costs. These habitats play an important role in reducing the energy of waves as they move inshore, so that sea defences are easier to build and maintain, and are less likely to be overtopped during storms.
A number of different schemes and funds are in place to financially compensate landowners interested in making this kind of change, and a reduction in the need for drainage ditches in Swale could potentially reduce the LMIDB’s annual bill to Swale Borough Council, which currently stands at around a million pounds per year.
Council Tax
Council Tax was debated at the November KCC full council meeting. Following recent announcements from the Welsh government that council tax will be reformed there to be made more reflective of people’s ability to pay, I submitted a motion for KCC to write to the UK government to follow suit.
Following the debate at County Hall, where almost everyone who spoke agreed that council tax was unfair and the whole system needed scrapping rather than reforming, we submitted an amended wording to our motion to scrap council tax and replace it with a new tax more reflective of people’s ability to pay. Sadly the amendment to the motion was voted down by the majority of councillors.
Seashells Children’s Centre
Following a year-long push from our group at KCC, the council agreed earlier this year to reduce the number of petition signatures required to trigger a debate at a KCC full council meeting from 10,000 down to 5,000. I was pleased that the Seashells Children Centre in Sheerness were able to meet this target with a petition to review the decision to cut funding to the children’s services they provide. A move which was also unanimously opposed by Swale Borough Council’s councillors at a recent meeting.
Children’s services are vital to ensure our children have the best start in life and grow to be happy, healthy adults, especially in areas where the need for support is greatest. I believe that cutting this funding would be very short-sighted as numerous studies have shown that the financial savings do not reflect the long-term cost to all of us if children’s needs are not met and they don’t get the necessary support.
Highsted Park
Swale’s Green councillors have released a statement regarding the Secretary of State’s decision to “call in” the planning decision on this vast development proposed East and South of Sittingbourne. We have all been shocked and angered by this move, which raises huge questions for the future of local planning, and the potential for the proposed Winterbourne Fields and Duchy developments to be similarly taken out of our hands. I am sorry to say that the future of local democracy in planning is looking very uncertain.
Our statement can be found here
Rich Lehmann
rich.lehmann@kent.gov.uk
