‘Time to scrap daft system and set up super council’
Maidstone’s political leader has proposed the borough follows in the footsteps of Medway and opt for a onestop council, to better serve residents. Alan Smith reports...
A Kent council leader is proposing a radical shake-up of the county’s “daft” political system, that would involve replacing his own authority with a super council.
Maidstone’s Cllr David Burton (Con) wants to follow the lead of Medway and break away from having bureaucracy at both county and borough level.
Instead he is proposing that Kent is reduced to two or three unitary authorities – super councils, with one responsible for all the services in each area.
Cllr Burton told the Kent Messenger: “My starting point is that having been a councillor for 12 years, I’ve reached the point where I think the system we have is daft.
“Kent County Council (KCC) is responsible for the roads and transport, but Maidstone Borough Council (MBC) has to manage planning.
“There is no joined-up thinking and, what’s more, it’s confusing for residents. When you speak to people on the doorstep, few understand which authority is responsible for what.
“If they say, ‘why haven’t you mowed the verge?’ you have to explain, up to this point the grass is the borough’s responsibility, that bit belongs to KCC.”
Cllr Burton said: “Wouldn’t it just be sensible to have highways and planning in the same office?
“There is a different way of governing and I’m hoping we can move in that direction.”
He said: “We need a single point of responsibility. At the moment there are 14 councils in Kent. I think ideally that might be reduced to two or three.
“There would be financial savings too – we would be paying only, say, three chief executives, not 14.”
But Cllr Burton admitted there could be downsides.
He said: “The chief worry is how we could retain local responsibility, and not have decisions taken at too high a level.
“And inevitably we would need fewer councillors, so it’s a bit like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas.”
There has been a discussion about reforming our system of local government for many years.
In 2016, during a debate in Westminster Hall, it was proposed to blanket abolish tier district and borough councils in favour of single authorities with each ward member representing 15,000 electors each.
The Government has not adopted quite so radical approach, but has been encouraging the expansion of unitary authorities and elected mayors.
The idea of unitary authorities is fully adopted by the Maidstone Conservative Party, whose policy manifesto states: “In simple terms – we believe that the time for Kent County Council and Maidstone Borough Council to exist separately has ended.
“A single unitary authority approach will be more efficient, more cost effective and less confusing for our residents.”
There are regular meetings between the leaders of all the borough and district councils in Kent.
Cllr Burton said: “My sense is that quite a few leaders are in favour of unitary authorities in private, but getting people to stick their heads above the parapet is more difficult.”
Cllr Burton has no firm plan for the unitary authority he would want to see for Maidstone. He said: “We could look at linking with Tonbridge and Malling and with Tunbridge Wells, or there could be a link with north Kent, with Dartford, Gravesham and Medway.”
He said: “There are plenty of options. I recognise that any change is a long, long way off, not least because there would have to be a great deal of public engagement first.”
Any change would also require an Act of Parliament.
“What we need to do is to start the conversation.”
As far as Cllr Burton’s political colleagues are concerned, most are supportive.
Clive English, the leader of the Maidstone Liberal Democrat Group, said: “The Lib Dems are in favour of a reasonably sized unitary authority.
“There will be need to be hard discussion on what is in that authority and how it works.”
Newly elected Green councillor Stuart Jeffery was also in favour. He said: “I am very supportive of a move towards Maidstone being a unitary authority.
“The current split in responsibilities does not serve the people well, but as democracy is best delivered as close to the electorate as possible, I would want no great expansion of the borough or wards.”
Maureen Cleator, leader of the Labour group on Maidstone, ruled out a Kent-wide unitary authority as “unworkable”, but said: “It is clear currently that there is much confusion among many in the public over which authority is responsible for providing which service.”
There is already one unitary authority in Kent – Medway council, which was formed in 1998 when the City of Rochester-upon-Medway
amalgamated with Gillingham Borough Council. It now also provides to its residents the services such as highways, education and social services, that used to be provided through KCC.
Cllr Rodney Chambers was leader of the Conservative group at Gillingham, prior to the merger, and was one of the key figures in pressing ahead with the proposals.
He said: “One of the key issues for us was to become a strategic authority so that we could access the Government funding necessary to regenerate the Medway Towns following the closure of Chatham Dockyard.
“KCC were simply not at that time providing us with the support, particularly on highways, that was needed.”
Cllr Chambers said: “It was
a challenging time, but we did have the support of central Government, and there was cross-party support here in Medway, and we achieved our aim.”
Cllr Chambers insisted the change had been a good thing for the residents of Medway. He said: “We are much more efficient at meeting their needs now, because we are local and we know what they are.”
But he did warn that Maidstone would be too small to go it alone. He said: “You have to have a sufficient size of population to generate the income to meet particularly the provision of the statutory services, which are seeing increasing demand every year.”
The population of the Medway Towns is around 280,000, while Maidstone’s is 155,000.