Trailblazing or takeover?
Universities of Kent and Greenwich to merge, plus Reform councillor defects to 2015, what's going on at KCC this week, news in brief, and more
The University of Kent is a staple of the county, but changes are on the horizon as the establishment is set to merge with the University of Greenwich to form a ‘multi-university group.’ But given the state of Kent’s finances in recent years, is this the trailblazing move the universities are pitching it as, or a desperate move to survive? Further down, we have news of a Reform councillor quitting the party for an unlikely destination, the latest happenings at KCC, news in brief, and more.
Trailblazing or takeover?
The University of Kent and the University of Greenwich suddenly announced this week that they are to fuse into something that doesn’t quite exist yet: the London and South East University Group, a ‘multi-university group’ with one vice chancellor, one governing body and one academic board, but two brands still pretending to be separate.
On the surface, students won’t notice much. They’ll still apply to Kent or Greenwich, and they’ll still graduate with that name on the certificate. Campuses in Canterbury, Greenwich, and Medway will keep their signs. But behind the curtains, one executive team led by Greenwich vice chancellor Jane Harrington will manage the organisation.
The official line is that this is about sustainability and strength. Together, the two universities say they can widen access, boost research and pull in more investment. They talk about “trailblazing collaboration,” but the reality is a more basic financial necessity. Both Kent and Greenwich have been struggling, and the financial screws have been tightening for years.
Kent has already been through painful rounds of redundancies. In recent years, hundreds of staff have been cut, with whole departments hollowed out, in a desperate attempt to balance the books. Morale has been low ever since. As such, this move could look less like a trailblazing merger and more like a desperate attempt to cling on.
Greenwich hasn’t exactly escaped controversy either. In the spring, the University and College Union branded it a ‘rogue employer’ over plans to axe more than 300 staff. Now, the same union describes the new arrangement as a takeover rather than a merger. “This is a transformation driven by severe financial pressure,” said general secretary Jo Grady, who also blasted how staff and students only found out when the press release dropped. The union is demanding “urgent reassurance that jobs and student provision will be protected.”
The geography makes it feel even more challenging. Greenwich’s main campus sits on the Thames, Kent’s flagship sprawls over Canterbury’s outskirts, and the two are more than 50 miles apart. Medway, already a compromise campus jointly occupied by Kent, Greenwich and Canterbury Christ Church, sits between them like a neglected middle child. Linking these three very different places under one roof won’t be straightforward.
Local politicians, though, are keen to sound upbeat. Medway Council welcomed the deal, saying it should guarantee the town keeps a spread of degrees. Kent Student Union echoed the “nothing changes for now” message, telling students “for students there is no change right now” while promising to make sure their voices are heard as the London and South East University Group takes shape.
But the fears are obvious. One leadership team running two universities means overlapping roles will vanish. Redundancies, course closures, and decisions potentially made in Greenwich with Kent as an afterthought concern Kent staff.
Identity is the other worry. Kent has spent decades branding itself as a research-led university, with Canterbury’s skyline dominated by its campus. How much of that survives in a structure run from Greenwich remains to be seen. Canterbury risks being cast as a satellite, and the promise that the “Kent brand” will continue feels thin when financial logic points in the opposite direction.
Medway is again in the middle. Optimists talk about new courses and better funding at a campus that has never quite worked. Perhaps a more realistic scenario sees resources flowing up the A2, leaving Medway to scrape by.
None of this happens overnight. While contracts are supposed to be signed by Christmas, with the London and South East University Group officially launching in 2026, the legal process could stretch past that.
The sector is watching. Wonkhe, the higher education policy site, called it the first true “multi-university group” in England. If it works, other struggling institutions might follow. If it collapses, it will be the case study everyone else avoids.
For Kent, the stakes are brutal. This could be the deal that keeps higher education thriving in the county. However, it could just as easily strip away the identity, culture, and independence the university has built since the 1960s.
Management insists everything continues as normal. Unions insist cuts are inevitable. Somewhere between those two lines lies the truth. The next 18 months will show whether this is Kent’s lifeline or the end of the university as we’ve known it.
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Reform councillor defects to 2015
Cllr Amelia Randall has had quite a month.
In August, the Birchington & Rural county councillor was photographed with four of her fellow Reform councillors smiling alongside a man draped in a neo-Nazi flag, something she has refused to acknowledge in the weeks since.
Last weekend, she attended Reform party conference after spending the week promoting Reform policies on social media.
On Monday, she defected to UKIP.
It’s a remarkably quick turnaround for a councillor who admitted in one post that she was unaware UKIP was still a thing, and only looked into them when she met leader Nick Tenconi at the anti-immigration march in Maidstone last month. She went on to claim that she was won over by his ‘masculine figure saying it as it is.’
In the week since, she’s been setting out her stall as a UKIP councillor - putting local people first, protecting green spaces, ending the war on motorists, ending woke policing, ending council waste, and no more climate emergencies. You aren't alone if you’re struggling to find a difference between this and Reform.
Perhaps the main difference is the strangely Christian bent UKIP is now running with Tenconi, who likes to pose in front of crosses and the such. Cllr Randall pushed in another tweet that she supports a position of ‘no more mosques’ and, perhaps the most telling part, told people who come to the UK to ‘remain in your lane.’ It also says a lot about where we are that on the same day Randall announced her defection, she was already having to defend Tenconi performing a Nazi salute.
We requested comment from Cllr Randall about her defection, but received no response.
It’s hard to see Reform being particularly concerned about this, given they still hold a commanding majority on KCC, with 55 out of 81 seats. That said, this is the second loss within their four months of taking office, following the whip being removed from Cllr Daniel Taylor, who is currently awaiting trial after being charged with making threats to kill his wife.
What else has been happening at KCC this week?
A new Economic Impact Report from KCC is bullish about the £10bn Lower Thames Crossing, billing it as the long-awaited fix for Dartford’s overloaded crossing and a catalyst for jobs, housing and inward investment across Kent and Medway. It argues the new route will ease congestion, open new business markets and unlock suppressed growth in North Kent. However, it also cautions that some firms may relocate across the river to Essex, that the benefits depend on wider upgrades to the A2, M2, and other routes, and that the funding model for the project remains unresolved.
Local government reorganisation edged forward this week, with two plans being progressed by Kent Council Leaders. One three-unitary model and one four-unitary model were moved to the next stage, though KCC is moving ahead with its own one-unitary model that stands nearly no chance of getting off the ground.
KCC leader Linden Kemkaran went on Times Radio to defend her party conference platforming a crank who claimed that covid vaccines gave members of the royal family cancer. Within two minutes, she claimed covid vaccines were never meant for children (they were), didn’t rule out the connection between the vaccines and royal cancer, and said we should ‘talk about’ holding an inquiry into a link between vaccines and cancer.
KCC meets next week for a regular county council meeting. The agenda includes debate on a new draft strategic statement for the council called ‘Reforming Kent,’ which could breach the Local Government Act, a motion from Reform repealing Kent’s declaration of a climate emergency, and a motion from the Lib Dems in favour of vaccines.
In brief
🏴 It’s been another big week for flags in the county. Anti-immigration protestors turned up in Faversham last weekend and were met with counter-protestors. A column in the Guardian called the protestors a ‘racist mob menacing our town.’ KentOnline got in on the witch hunt of a ‘disgusting’ man who pulled down a flag in Whitstable. Meanwhile, Labour MPs still don’t know how to react, with Folkestone and Hythe MP condemning ‘vandalism not patriotism,’ while Chatham and Aylesford MP Tristan Osborne celebrating the people erecting flags in this constituency.
🏥 The government has released league tables on the performance of NHS trusts for the first time. Out of the 134 acute trusts in the UK, Medway came near the bottom of the pile in 130th. Dartford and Gravesham is marginally better in 114th, with East Kent in 101st. Nearer the top of the table, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells clocked in 12th. Things are better in non-acute trusts, with both Kent trusts making the top ten. Finally, South East Coast Ambulance Service are ranked 4th out of the ten in the country.
🪖 In May, we covered a remarkable planning dispute in Tunbridge Wells over a 1.5m strip of footpath that a restaurant had annexed without permission. The saga is set to come to an end next week, with the council proposing to let the restaurant get away with it and make it permanent.
🪦 Maidstone councillors will this week consider the petition we covered recently, calling for a memorial to six women executed for witchcraft in 1652. A report recommends adding it to the council’s Heritage Spaces project at Penenden Heath, though options range from expanding a planned statue to a temporary museum exhibition.
📜 Tunbridge Wells Borough Council proposes changing its constitution so that a simple majority vote can remove a leader rather than the two-thirds of councillors currently required.
🌳 Also in Tunbridge Wells, a borough councillor has defected from the Tunbridge Wells Alliance to the Conservatives for reasons.
🏗️ Swale planning officers have recommended that a 90-home development in Newington be approved.
🗄️ Big planning applications submitted in the county this week include proposals for 135 homes and retail floorspace in Folkestone, 100 homes in Eastry, and 100 homes in Meopham.
🏨 Two applications have also been submitted for hotels in Kent this week. The Cave in Boughton under Blean proposes building a spa, 36 hotel rooms, padel courts, holiday lodges, and custom-build homes. Elsewhere, The Moat pub and wedding venue in Wrotham has proposed to build a 29 room hotel on its grounds.
👨💼 Recent Kent Current interviewee Tim Aker will step down from his role at the Federation of Small Businesses on 1 October to launch his own consultancy firm.
🚧 Sittingbourne and Sheppey MP Kevin McKenna and Swale Borough Council leader Tim Gibson have called for residents to be compensated over roadworks in Iwade that were supposed to be completed in 2024 but will now run until 2026.
💣 Bomb disposal teams were called after a grenade was found in a bin in Wye.
🏬 The former Debenhams building in Gravesend has been sold to a mystery buyer.
🏊 Work is set to begin on a new £43m leisure centre in Gravesend.
🚄 The Le Shuttle terminal at Folkestone will see a transformation through extensive works over the next five years.
🥩 Illegal meat passing through the Port of Dover has surged, with 70 tonnes being discovered between January and April this year, up from 13 tonnes in the same period in 2023.
🤬 Thanet District Council have withdrawn a Public Space Protection Order that would have potentially fined people for swearing after a free speech organisation threatened to take them to court. We covered the council's plans and their feasibility last month.
More Currents
Our paid supporters received a double helping of extra Kent Current editions this week. On Tuesday, former KM Political Editor Paul Francis wrote for us on how the rise of Reform is leaving Kent’s old political certainties looking shaky.
Over the weekend, we published our latest big interview, this time with writer and podcaster Dorian Lynsky. We’ve had some great responses to this conversation, so check out the full thing if you haven’t already.
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