Mark Welch, the Principal Transport Planner at Kent County Council (KCC) advised that a briefing on the Local Transport Plan 5 (LTP5) Consultation was being presented to all four Area Committee Meetings.

He said that this was a statutory plan for KCC which developed policies for the promotion and encouragement of safe, integrated, efficient and economic transport to, from and within their area and carried out their functions which would implement those policies. The plan would cover the period up to 2037.

KCC wanted to improve the health, wellbeing and economic prosperity of lives in Kent by delivering a safe, reliable, efficient and affordable transport network across the county and as an international gateway. KCC would plan for growth in Kent in a way that enabled them to combat climate change and preserve Kent’s environment.

He said that KCC would do this by delivering emission-free travel by getting effective dedicated infrastructure for electric vehicles, increase public transport use and make walking and cycling attractive. This would be enabled by maintaining their highways network and delivering their ‘Vision Zero’ road safety strategy.

Mark Welsh said that KCC were consulting on the ambitions and outcomes set out in the document. He said the consultation closed on 8 October 2024 and responses would then be reviewed before going to a KCC Full Council meeting in December 2024. People could either respond by emailing comments to LTP5@kent.gov.uk or via their ‘Let’s Talk’ online platform at www.kent.gov.uk/ltp5. He said there would be drop-in sessions on 10 September 2024 at Sheppey Gateway and 24 September 2024 at Sittingbourne Library.

A lengthy discussion took place and below is a summary of comments:

·         Where did the proposal on the Swale slide “Sittingbourne town traffic congestion relief including potential new highways routes between the A2 and M2” come from?;

·         the two Network Rail bridges in Sittingbourne were pinch-points and if widened would relieve congestion, why was there no reference to that in the plan?;

·         freight coming from the ports caused considerable damage to the highway network, why had that not been picked up in the plan?;

·         following KCC cuts, bus services in rural Swale had been decimated, some with no service and some reduced by 75%;

·         villages suffered when Operation Brock was in place as motorists used the rural routes as rat-runs. The plan should include improved flow on the roads;

·         Rodmersham school applied to have a 20 mile per hour (mph) speed limit on the road through the village, people did not feel safe walking along the lanes. KCC said it was not self-enforcing;

·         there was no sustainable bus service to and from the Kent Science Park, Councillor Monique Bonney had previously requested that Section 106 funding be used for an early morning and late afternoon service but KCC refused. The subsidized service had now been cut;

·         there was a focus on the M20 and M2/A2 corridors between London and the coast but nothing about north/south connections that assisted with moving around the county;

·         Swale Borough Council (SBC) had to provide 11,000 houses in their Local Plan but there was no infrastructure to make that sustainable. Why didn’t KCC support SBC to say that figure was not sustainable?;

·         utility companies regularly dug up roads when installing services for new developments which caused congestion, KCC had the powers to manage that better;

·         what did the plan say KCC would do to tackle congestion over the next 15 years?;

·         developments needed better infrastructure for walking and cycling, people would use those methods of travel if they were safer;

·         it was no longer possible to travel to Europe from Ebbsfleet or Ashford;

·         more people felt isolated without bus services, a resident recently had to spend £50 on a taxi for a return trip to the doctor’s surgery;

·         other counties manage to provide much better bus services;

·         residents believed there was no point responding to consultations like this as they thought they were just a box-ticking exercise and KCC would do what they want;

·         a return ticket from Sittingbourne to London cost £72, that was not sustainable. Rail companies should be pressed to make fares affordable;

·         hard copies of the consultation documents should be provided so they could be left in village shops;

·         KCC should support legislation change to allow electric scooters to be used for short journeys to be a reasonable and practical solution to lack of bus services; and

·         to improve congestion KCC needed to talk to district councillors on a regular basis as they had local knowledge.

Mark Welsh responded and said that there were a range of options proposed to relieve congestion in Sittingbourne and a relief road was one of them. When applying for government funding KCC needed to show that all options had been considered. International rail freight was covered in the LTP5, the containerize  ed loads do not fit through Victorian tunnels, they would need to be notched with a modified tunnel lining or use wagons with lower loads. More locally in Swale there needed to be a market led proposal to bring back into use the rail sidings. This would need to be commercially funded and not something KCC could have influence over. There was not a lot of detail in the LTP5 about bus services as it was covered in the Bus Service Improvement Plan. Regarding 20 mph zones KCC had a clear policy on how it dealt with those. KCC stated in their Framing Kent’s Future Strategy that the burden of housing should be more equally spread away from the southeast. Swale Joint Transport Board (JTB) received a briefing on utilities earlier this year. There was a lot more detail on public transport in the LTP5 than presented this evening. KCC encouraged rail networks to do more targeted fare initiatives. An electric scooter pilot took place in Canterbury, but this was not continued due to safety incidents. Mark Welsh agreed to liaise with the Policy & Engagement Officer to get hard copies of the LTP5 circulated.