The final countdown to a new Kent
Plus what is happening at KCC this week, a Canterbury by-election, news in brief, and more
Kent’s councils are entering the decisive phase of local government reform, with final submissions due by the end of the month and the competing business cases now laid bare. This week, we break down the numbers behind each model and examine where the political support is drifting. We also cover the latest happenings at KCC, a Canterbury by-election, and the key stories from across the county.
The final countdown to a new Kent
Kent’s councils are heading into the final weeks of a process that will reshape local government across the county. By the end of this month, every authority must decide what kind of unitary structure it wants to replace Kent County Council, Medway Council, and the 12 districts. It’s a huge piece of constitutional reform that would normally take years to work through. Instead, councils are being pushed to settle on a preferred map within months, with the new system due to go live in April 2028.
The route here has been anything but orderly. Kent and Medway spent 2024 trying to secure a devolution deal, submitting an expression of interest and attempting to join the Government’s Devolution Priority Programme. When the White Paper arrived naming areas selected for early talks, Kent wasn’t on the list. Instead, the area was told to reorganise its entire structure of local government first.
That instruction set off a chain reaction. Councils produced an interim plan in March and received feedback in May. A November deadline was then set for full submissions. From that point, ministers will choose a model next summer, consult publicly in early 2026, legislate in the autumn, hold shadow elections in 2027 and switch to the new councils the following spring. It is an extraordinarily compressed timetable.
The work has produced five full business cases. They all follow the same basic principle: expensive and disruptive to set up, cheaper in the long run once duplicated services are removed. The differences lie in how many councils Kent is left with and what the map looks like.
Kent County Council’s own preferred model, 1A, creates a single authority for the whole county and Medway. Its financial case is simple. It is the cheapest to create (£99.4m) and the one that delivers the largest annual saving (£69m). But it does so by producing a council larger than anything else in England, and the government has been clear that it does not want mega-unitaries. The now infamous leaked Reform Zoom call saw KCC leader Linden Kemkaran declare that the proposal was designed to throw a “spoke in the works” of the changes. Few expect it to progress.
At the other end of the spectrum is 5A, the five-unitary model promoted by Dartford and Gravesham. Its costs are higher to implement (£139.1m), and once the price of separating services is included, its annual savings shrink to between £19.7m and a loss of £2.4m. The payback can take up to 14 years or never arrive at all. Nothing in the modelling suggests it could meet the government’s tests.
The more serious debate sits between the middle options: 3A and the two four-unitary models, 4B and 4D. These are the ones that fall into the population ranges ministers have signalled they want and that generate credible savings without creating unwieldy authorities.
The three-unitary option, 3A, has become the most widely accepted. Its set-up cost is £127.7m, and its ongoing savings range from £49.7m to £40.2m, depending on how social care services are divided. The payback comes after five to seven years. It also avoids some of the more politically fraught boundary issues.
The four-unitary path is harder. 4B, which keeps existing boundaries fixed and just merges current councils, costs £130.9m to establish and delivers annual savings of £34.6m to £18.9m. Its payback period stretches to 14 years. Medway’s preferred version, 4D, increases the up-front bill to £135.9m but otherwise mirrors the 4B numbers. Medway’s leadership has argued that 4D could attract wider backing. In practice, other councils responded poorly when it was presented to them, and little has changed since. The financial case is serviceable, the politics are not.
All of this sits on top of a shared evidence base that runs to hundreds of pages: demographic pressures, SEND demand, adult social care modelling, transport patterns and a full equality impact assessment. The warnings are consistent across all options that service disruption is a real risk if adult social care, safeguarding, education or digital access are not handled carefully during transition.
Most councils have yet to take formal decisions on which option they will back. Some are still weighing their choices, others waiting to see which way the wind seems to blow. The wider mood varies. For some leaders, this is a chance to redesign local government for the next generation, but for others, it is an unwelcome upheaval forced on already stretched services. But the deadline is fixed, and the package Kent submits this month will define what ministers can choose from.
Once the proposals are in, the process moves to Whitehall. Ministers will select the structure that best matches their criteria, not necessarily the model with the broadest local support. After that, Kent enters a three-year transition to entirely new councils.
For all the modelling and all the meetings, the striking feature of this process is the lack of shared direction. Kent’s councils are working toward the same deadline but toward very different preferences. The final shape of local government in the county will be decided in London, not Kent, and it will set the course for decades.
What is happening at KCC this week?
Byline Times reports that Reform is planning to shut down multiple KCC committees tasked with scrutinising its work.
Reform has withdrawn from a BBC documentary being made about them following the row over how Panorama edited a clip of Donald Trump. KCC leader Linden Kemkaran, one of the subjects of the documentary, said she had withdrawn all permission for footage to air.
Following the paralysis caused by a wave of suspensions, KCC has named the 15 councillors who will sit on Kent Fire and Rescue Authority.
Mystery surrounds the departure of Cllr Dean Burns from his shadow cabinet position for the environment. Burns, previously heard criticising “back-biting” by the group's leadership, has suddenly found himself a backbencher again, with neither he nor the administration particularly eager to comment on what has happened.
Ramsgate councillor Terry Mole went to great lengths to try to hide the name of the company he owns, seemingly in breach of the Localism Act.
Greens take seat from Lib Dems in Canterbury
The final county by-election of the year took place yesterday, with voters going to the polls in Wincheap ward to elect a new councillor to Canterbury City Council.
This by-election was called following the resignation of Liberal Democrat councillor Roben Franklin, who moved away from the area. The ward was previously split between the Lib Dems and Labour.
So, of course, the Green Party swept to victory.
🟢 Peter Campbell (Green): 842
🔶 Guy Meurice (Lib Dem): 518
➡️ Colin Spooner (Reform): 351
🌹 Jasmin Dallos-Foreman (Labour): 276
🌳 Elliott Curryer (Conservative): 166
The turnout was 33.3%, relatively high for a local council by-election.
The result will be particularly brutal for Labour, which leads the administration in Canterbury and still holds the other seat in the ward, but was pushed into fourth place behind the Greens, Lib Dems, and Reform.
It comes at a time when both of the traditional main parties are struggling to win votes across the country, while insurgent parties are performing significantly better.
Peter Campbell, the Green Party’s new councillor for Wincheap, says his surprise victory reflects “an appetite for the policies of the Green Party and the positive aspects of change from what we’ve had in the past.” A long-standing Green member and coordinator of the Canterbury District party, he stepped in after the party struggled to find a local candidate, saying it was important “to show a presence” in an area where the Greens have never previously broken through.
Campbell focused his campaign on planning decisions that have unsettled residents. The council’s draft local plan initially proposed turning Thanington Recreation Ground into a park and ride, a move “hastily removed” once opposition mounted, while a separate proposal to build on the orchards at Merton Park remains. He described it as “another example of conversion of green open space to luxury housing,” something that “has not really gone down too well with the locals.” Campbell also credited the momentum generated by new Green leader Zach Polanski for helping shift voter sentiment, and said he intends to work closely with Labour ward colleague and with local groups “across the political divide, for the people of Wincheap, not on a party political basis.”
In brief
🚨 Police and Crime Commissioners are set to be abolished, with the role ceasing to exist in 2028. As such, Matthew Scott will be the last Kent Police and Crime Commissioner, freeing him up to look toward a future Mayor of Kent role instead.
🛢️ Thousands of fish and three swans have been killed in a pollution incident in the River Wantsum near Canterbury. The Environment Agency are trying to establish the cause.
📣 Far right anti-immigration protests in Kent seem to be struggling to maintain attendance numbers, given their current technique of turning up in one county town pretty much every weekend.
👮 A Kent Police officer has been handed a misconduct notice after a drone he was piloting crashed into an overhead cable, which caused it to fall to the ground, seriously injuring a child.
🗂️ The public planning inquiry into the 8,400 home Highstead Park development near Sittingbourne has concluded, with the government expected to make a decision next year.
🐈 Sevenoaks seems to be in the midst of a Schrödinger’s leader scenario, where the papers for next week’s council meeting include an election of a new leader following the resignation of Cllr Roddy Hogarth, who has been under pressure for some time. At the same time, Hogarth has insisted to the Local Democracy Reporting Service that he is “still the leader.”
Footnotes
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