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Councillor’s Report April 2024 – Councillor Rich Lehmann
Reply
It would be remiss of me not to write something about the subject which has been the talk of Swale for the past month – bins.
The problems we’ve seen with late, or in many cases entirely missed, collections across large parts of the borough have understandably generated a significant volume of calls to our customer service team and calls and emails to councillors. They have also generated a significant number of posts and comments on Facebook.
I am very sorry for the inconvenience and distress that this service has caused across the borough during the past month. The switchover has clearly been a failure, although possibly not to the degree that many would believe. There are large parts of the borough that have received a ‘perfect’ service so far, and it is primarily the rural areas which have been missed (in many cases consistently). I’d like to share the reasons why this is, and what Suez have been, and are continuing to do, to remedy the situation.
Firstly, to respond to a question which I’ve seen raised, the reason we no longer have a contract with Biffa is simply that the contract we had with them expired. Along with our partners in Ashford and Maidstone, we put out a tender and Suez were the only company to bid for that contract.
More on this can be read online at www.tinyurl.com/SBCwaste
Some general reasons why the rounds are currently taking longer include:
New routes – the routes have been redrawn to be more efficient and resilient in the long term. We have more vehicles out in the same parts of the borough on the same day. This means that when a crew member is suddenly unable to work, (this work has a higher rate of injury than most), or there is a vehicle breakdown, we have other vehicles nearby who can pick up the rest of that round. The completion of the new routes will get faster and more efficient with practice, but it may take a few weeks.
New processes – the crews now have handheld devices which can be used to register which properties have been collected from and which haven’t. This additional piece of work may slow crews down as they get used to it, but in the long term will bring benefits in terms of more accurate data and a greater ability to send crews out to missed areas without them needing to be reported by the public.
The main reason the rural rounds have been hit disproportionately is that the new routes have not been assigned as efficiently as they should have been in terms of areas served by narrow lorries and those that have full-size lorries. There are large parts of the borough which can easily be navigated by the larger trucks and were under the previous contract. Suez have acknowledged this and are making changes to the routes to switch more properties and areas onto the full-size trucks. This will greatly improve their ability to complete collection rounds.
Suez have also employed a number of new staff, both on the driver side and the loader side, and this week, (week beginning 15th April), we are beginning to see the effect of those additional staff and a much greater proportion of collections being completed on the scheduled day. I am hopeful that this trend will continue and that we will reach a state of normal service by early to mid-May.
Rich Lehmann
rich.lehmann@kent.gov.uk
https://kentgreencouncillors.news/
Promoted by T. Valentine on behalf of R.Lehmann (Swale Green Party) c/o PO Box 78066, London, SE16 9GQ
KCC Councillor’s Report March 2024
Rich Lehmann
I’m acutely aware that in the last couple of pieces I’ve written I’ve mainly been talking rubbish (and recycling, and food waste), so I’ll change the record this month. The new waste collection contract will commence on Monday 25th March, and because of the widespread changes to collection days across the borough, there will likely be a lot of disruption and confusion in the first month or two, but hopefully the new dates will ‘bed in’ quickly.
BUDGETS
Kent County Council and Swale Borough Council have both now set their budgets for 2024/25. The current, widely publicised, financial pressures that councils up and down the country are facing have forced both councils into making difficult decisions relating to the cutting of services, and the increasing of charges for some of the services they provide.
It was an interesting experience for me. I’ve now spent three years as an opposition councillor at KCC attacking and trying to reverse or prevent cuts made in their budget; but now as an administration councillor at Swale, I’m on the other side of the coin, having to decide (along with other administration councillors) which areas to make cuts in, and then having to defend those decisions. Neither role is easy, or pleasant, and I find the whole process pretty exhausting.
One small silver lining that came out of the KCC budget was that the Faversham Household Waste Recycling Centre, which was threatened with closure in 2023, has been given a stay of execution for the coming year. However tips are still earmarked as a potential area in which the council might look to make cuts in 2025, along with libraries, school maintenance, the Kent Travel Saver (which would cost many families around £1000 without the KCC Subsidy), and “other community services”.
Swale have also made some tough decisions whilst attempting to balance their books. Although here it’s often more a case of increased charges (such as those for car parking) which appear to be the cause of the greatest concern.
To add insult to injury for residents, the continued reductions in funding from central government mean that both councils are effectively forced to raise their council tax rates by the maximum allowed amount (4.99% for KCC and 2.99% for Swale) just to avoid having to make those cuts even deeper.
I sincerely hope that changes are made in the coming years which mean that local government is given more funding to provide the services that our communities desperately need.
Rich Lehmann
rich.lehmann@kent.gov.uk
KCC Councillor’s Report February 2024
Rich Lehmann
Following on the theme of the piece I wrote last month, at Swale Borough Council it’s all systems go in preparation for the new waste collection contract which is coming in late March.
I was hoping to have included information about which days resident’s bins would now be emptied on a parish by parish basis, but a few additional, last minute changes to the routes meant that sadly this was not possible. I can, however, say that letters are being sent out to every household from mid-February, so you should have received one by the time you read this.
The new collection dates will take effect from Monday 25th March, so please stick to your current collection dates until that point.
As I also mentioned last month, we will be doing our best to improve rates of collection not only of dry recycling, but also of food waste. This is something that has numerous benefits, including helping to keep your bins less smelly and your green bin cleaner and reducing the cost of disposing of waste for our councils. The food waste collected separately from household rubbish is turned into compost, which is great for the environment.
If you don’t already have them, you can order both orange and black ‘kerbside’ food waste bins, and small silver food waste bins for your kitchen on the Swale Borough Council website by going to the following link – http://tinyurl.com/swalefoodwaste
Rich Lehmann
rich.lehmann@kent.gov.uk
https://kentgreencouncillors.news/
Kent County Councillor’s Report January 2024
Rich Lehmann
In late November I had the chance to visit a place I’d been wanting to see for years. Nothing as exciting as the Taj Mahal or the Sydney Opera House though, this was a visit to the Material Recycling Facility in Crayford where all of our dry recycling is sorted to be sent on for recycling and re-use.
Way back in 2017 when I was involved with the Plastic Free Faversham campaign group, I visited the incinerator at Allington where our rubbish is burned to generate electricity, and on another occasion we visited the site where our food and garden waste is turned into compost. I never managed to make it to the place which arguably held the answer to the most frequently asked questions around our household waste. Questions like ‘how clean does food packaging need to be before it’s put in the recycling?’ (quite clean, but it doesn’t need to be spotless), ‘can black plastic actually be recycled now?’ (sometimes), and ‘can I put tetrapak cartons in the recycling?’ (sadly, not at the current time, but soon!).
The visit was prompted in part by the fact that Swale Borough Council is about to start a new contract for household waste collection. From late March, our bins will all be collected by Suez instead of Biffa, and our collection days may change – a letter will be going out to all households in the coming weeks to confirm whether your collection day will be the same or not, and I will aim to provide this information in the piece I write next month if I can.
The new contract gives us a chance to try and redouble our efforts to improve the rates of dry recycling we collect across Swale which, over the last few years, have remained fairly flat and well below where they could potentially be.
There are two issues which cause our recycling rates to be lower than they could. The first is the more obvious one, that people are putting perfectly recyclable items in their household waste. The second, less obvious but more harmful one, is that residents are putting non-recyclable items into their blue recycling bins. This is far more problematic as it can cause entire lorry loads full of recyclable waste to be rejected when they reach the transfer station in Sittingbourne, which means (literally) tons of paper, plastic and glass is sent for incineration rather than recycling.
On the same day as the visit to Crayford, we visited the transfer station at Sittingbourne and saw two lorry loads of recycling unloaded. Unfortunately both loads were rejected as the levels of contamination within them were too high. Most of the items responsible for the loads being rejected were clearly not appropriate to go into the recycling. There were used disposable nappies, an old pillow, and a large amount of the material was shiny and stuck together with something that may have been used cooking oil.
A large part of our work in the coming years will be trying to get the message out about the harm putting non-recyclable items in your blue bin, and our comms team have already put together a video with footage filmed at the transfer station – http://tinyurl.com/sbc1223
Officers within the council often use the term ‘dry recycling’ when referring to the materials that are suitable to go into blue bins, and I think if we could use this term publicly more often it may help to shift perceptions a little and start to reduce this problem.
Rich Lehmann
rich.lehmann@kent.gov.uk
Promoted by T. Valentine on behalf of R.Lehmann, A.Gould & T.Thomson (Swale Green Party) c/o PO Box 78066, London, SE16 9GQ
KCC Councillor’s Report November 2023
KCC Household Waste Recycling Centres
After much jubilation last week at the news that KCC’s proposals to close Household Waste Recycling Centres (including the site at Faversham) appeared to have been binned, it seems the celebrations were premature. As opposed to the speculation in the papers at the beginning of the month, news came directly from KCC on Wednesday 15 November that the plans were merely on hold rather than scrapped. Given the amount of media coverage the story received across Kent, it seemed highly unlikely to me that the leadership would push ahead with the plans against the wishes of the majority of councillors, but given the financial strain the council is under perhaps they see it as unavoidable.
From the outset, the plans never appeared to be fully thought through. I opposed them at length during my group leader’s speech at the KCC full council meeting in May and also through my role as chair of the Environment Committee at Swale (a role I’d only been in a few days when the plans were first announced!). If they do resurface, I hope they are accompanied by suitable levels of data and evidence to try and justify how such a backward looking proposal could be considered during a climate and biodiversity crisis.
Arguments about the size of the Faversham tip which were put forward when the plans were first revealed lead me to believe that KCC will still be looking to close the Faversham site. With this in mind, I will continue working in my dual roles at both Swale Borough Council and Kent County Council to see if a better site can be acquired for a Recycling Centre fit for the future, which will be even more necessary if plans for an additional 2500 houses on the South East corner of Faversham come to fruition.
Local Walking and Cycling Infrastructure Plan Consultation
Still on the subject of consultations, KCC currently have a consultation open on their walking and cycling plans for the county. The plans include 30 key routes across the county which are proposed for improvements.
There are three key areas in Swale earmarked. Most relevant to our area is a proposal to improve the cycling route along the Lower Road between Faversham and Sittingbourne. It’s a route which can feel fairly dangerous in places for cyclists (and sadly saw the death of a cyclist near Tonge last year). Also featured are plans to improve walking provision around the northern side of Sittingbourne and cycling provision across the northern coast of the Isle of Sheppey.
The consultation is available online at the following address – https://tinyurl.com/kccwalking
Alternatively, a paper version can be requested by calling KCC Highways on 03000 418181.
Rich Lehmann
rich.lehmann@kent.gov.uk
https://kentgreencouncillors.news/
Swale Borough Councillor’s Report November 2023
Parking Consultation
I know parking is often a contentious issue, and some of the recent changes to car parking charging have caused concern.
Swale are currently consulting on a draft parking policy, so this is an opportunity to have your say, by emailing comments to policyteam@swale.gov.uk
There are always competing considerations around car use so I would encourage people to take a wider view: car parking and road space are always going to be limited, and the appearance of free use of empty roads conjured up in every car advertisement needs to be recognised as an illusion.
Car parking charges form an important part of the Council’s income, so we will also need to balance this against the fact that for some people car use and car parking is unavoidable, especially given the state of public transport.
However, more use of public transport is a vital part of reducing congestion and greenhouse gas emissions, and if car parking charges are set too low, then this further tips the cost-balance against choosing to leave the car behind if you have that option.
There are also possibilities of using car parks to encourage travel options beyond conventional cars: how much space should be given to electric charging points or cycle/ motorcycle parking ?
I hope this gives some food for thought. The draft policy can be found on the Swale Council website here: https://swale.gov.uk/news-and-your-council/consultations/draft-parking-policy
Alastair Gould
Swale Borough Councillors’ Report September 2023
Rich and I attended the Climate and Ecological Emergency working group meeting in August. Its title may be a bit of a mouthful, but it was really encouraging to see the work being done across so many departments in Swale.
Highlights are:
- Trees: more than 300 to be planted across Swale in the coming season on council land
- Electric charging: 18 new charge points
- Solar panels: continuing work on getting these on council buildings
- Car clubs: successful schemes in Faversham and Sittingbourne, with plans for an electric car to be added to the hybrids in Sittingbourne (there is already one in Faversham)
- Walking and cycling : developing a Swale -wide infrastructure plan, so we have projects ready to go as and when funding becomes available
- Recycling: looking at ways to improve recycling rates from bin collections
- Climate literacy : this may not be an obvious topic to focus on , but is arguably the most important . It is about improving the understanding amongst staff and members of the council of the issues around the climate and ecological emergency that we are facing, helping people to see that everything can and should be looked at with the impact on the planet in mind: something all of us need to do.
Alastair Gould
KCC Councillor’s Report September 2023
After a hectic few months after being elected to Swale Borough Council in May, I was hoping for a quite August, when the number of meetings at both Kent County Council and Swale Borough Council reduce and councillors aren’t needed ‘in the office’ quite so much.
However, this wasn’t to be the case. There were still plenty of meetings to attend, with the first meetings of the Steering Groups for both the Oare Gunpowder Works and Perry Woods (two fantastic natural sites we are lucky to have in our area), various meetings with KCC Highways to talk about future projects and improvements, and other casework-related meetings and calls.
I’m also currently a member of two groups which are primarily run by Faversham Town Council on two very different issues which affect both the town and the communities I represent across Swale East. The first is a working group set up to oppose KCC’s proposed closure of Faversham’s Household Waste Recycling Centre – which I have written about in the past two or three of these pieces. The second is a group working to bring a community bus service linking Faversham with some of the nearby villages which have been cut off since last year’s KCC bus subsidy cuts.
The Community Bus plans are not finalised yet, but the current intention is for the bus to link up the villages of Newnham, Doddington and Lynsted (all of which have no regular bus service currently) with the town, and also to provide a way for those living in town to reach venues that the current buses don’t go to, such as the Aldi supermarket near the motorway junction. It will accept passengers using bus passes and will make use of existing bus stops across the area (which thankfully KCC have still left in place, even in areas which haven’t had a bus since the start of the year).
Despite a grant from KCC to fund the costs of getting the project off the ground, it’s still going to be an expensive project to set up and to run. One of the things that will make it financially viable will be a reliance on volunteer drivers. We’ve had a fair amount of interest from local residents in volunteering to help, but the more volunteers, the easier it will be to keep the service regular and reliable. If you are interested in finding out more about what volunteering would involve, please get in touch with Louise at Faversham Town Council on 01795 503286, or by email at louise.bareham@favershamtowncouncil.gov.uk.
FAVERSHAM TIP
Going back to the tip – the current position is that KCC have put their consultation on hold while they gather further evidence. They haven’t been able to give any kind of indication of when the consultation will open, but I suspect it will be at some point this Autumn. I will continue to provide updates while this issue is ongoing.
Rich Lehmann
rich.lehmann@kent.gov.uk
richlehmann@swale.gov.uk
Swale Borough & Kent County Councillor’s Report July 2023
There are a number of consultations taking place right now and over the coming weeks, so I will take the opportunity to share the details of a few of them in this month’s column. Starting with the much-publicised proposal to close the Faversham Household Waste Recycling Centre (or tip, if you prefer the much shorter name for it!)
I was hoping to be able to share details of KCC’s Tip consultation in this month, but sadly KCC have taken a late decision to push back the start date to late July, so we are still in the dark about what exactly the consultation will look like. A new proposal went to the Environment and Transport Committee at KCC earlier in the month which now has four options on the table rather than three. Sadly Faversham is STILL lined up for closure in all four options.
Over the past few weeks I have been working with a cross party group of KCC and Faversham Town councillors, to oppose the closure. We organised a small protest outside County Hall ahead of the last full council meeting on 11th July and managed to get coverage in Kent Online and were also featured on BBC South East News. We are planning another protest at the full council meeting on 21st September, which I will share more details of next month.
When it finally goes live, the consultation will be available to respond to at https://letstalk.kent.gov.uk/
In the meantime, there are some other consultations on the same page which you may be interested in responding to:
The Community Wardens consultation has just opened. This is a service which provides 70 wardens across the county to be visible in local communities and help combat loneliness and isolation. KCC are currently proposing to cut £1m from this service, which would cut the total number of wardens across the county from 70 down to 38. There are currently four wardens across Swale, so this would very likely reduce to two or three if the cuts went ahead.
In addition to this, the ’emerging’ Local Transport Plan is also being consulted on. This is a critical point for roads and transport as KCC tries to balance an increasing number of vehicles on the road with a need to work towards net zero and a crumbling road network (especially in rural areas). The more people that can feed back to this consultation, the better.
And finally (and possibly most importantly), KCC have just opened their 2024-25 Budget Consultation, which seeks views on the areas residents consider most important for KCC to focus their limited resources on.
All of these consultations can be found at https://letstalk.kent.gov.uk/
Swale Borough Councillor for Boughton & Courtenay
Kent County Councillor for Swale East
Swale Borough & Kent County Councillor’s Report June 2023
In a break from tradition, I’m going to deviate from my usual county councillor column this month and write a single column as a combined borough and county councillor or ‘twin hatter’ (the description used in political circles). Normal service will be resumed next month.
First of all, I’d like to say a huge thank you to the residents of Boughton and Courtenay for putting your faith in me and electing me to represent you at Swale Borough Council for the next four years.
As you may be aware, shortly after the elections I was elected to be the Chair of Swale Borough Council’s Environment Committee, a role which not only covers climate change and other ‘green’ issues, but also takes in everything from bin collections and churchyards to fly tipping and stray dogs, (and a great deal more).
After an intense first few weeks of getting to grips with the dual roles, my workload is finally beginning to settle into a routine and I’m looking forward to the coming years. I’ve found the culture at Swale Borough Council to be significantly more open and accessible than it is at Kent County Council. Senior officers are far easier to contact and more forthcoming with responses to questions and enquiries.
In the interest of balance, I should mention that there are a number of factors which may have contributed to this difference in culture. When I started at KCC in May 2021, we were only just coming out of the last Covid lockdown, masks were still commonplace and the induction day at County Hall still involved a fair amount of social distancing. The first two KCC full council meetings of the new council took place at Mote Park sports centre because the council chamber at County Hall was too small to allow councillors and staff to remain safely distanced from each other.
In addition to this, in May 2021 I was entirely new to politics. I think it’s safe to say I’ve learned more over the past two years than at any point since my mid-teens, and although I still have plenty to learn, I now know how best to get the information I need to carry out my role effectively. I have some big plans for the coming years. The biggest challenge will be finding ways to carry them out whilst working with the exceptionally tight budgets we have available.
Faversham Household Waste Recycling Centre (Tip)
Kent County Council will be launching a consultation in mid-July to look at options relating to the Household Waste Recycling Centres across the county. Unfortunately for Faversham and Swale East, the Faversham site is currently lined up for closure in all of the very limited set of ‘options’ they have proposed.
My colleague Mark Hood is on a working group at KCC which has been tasked with writing the consultation document. There is cross party consensus that a significant volume of additional information needs to be made public for the consultation to be meaningful. The cabinet member for Environment at KCC has said that she would be open to alternative suggestions, but the lack of information given currently means any alternatives put forward would be largely based on guesswork.
Swale Borough Councillor for Boughton & Courtenay
Kent County Councillor for Swale East
Kent Green Councillors' News 