Rich Lehmann Swale East

At the KCC annual budget meeting in February, the administration put forward their proposed budget for the 2022/23 financial year. For a variety of reasons, they are in the unenviable position of having to balance the budget to provide more services each year for a growing population with increasingly complex needs; and do so with less money, because although council tax increases each year, the amount received from central government usually falls.

One of the administration’s proposals was to cut the current level of subsidy provided for bus services across the county by £2 million. Opposition groups put forward various amendments to try and prevent this cut from going ahead, but sadly were unable to get it removed from the budget. Unfortunately for Swale East, a fair amount of the services proposed to be cut are rural services, and a number of them serve the villages and parishes across our area.

A consultation on the future of these services opened on 20th February and will remain open until 20th April. It can be found online at https://letstalk.kent.gov.uk/bus-funding-reductions (or tinyurl.com/kentbus on most web browsers).

If you use these services, please respond to the consultation so that your voice is heard.

The services in Swale East in line for cuts are…

Kent Karrier – formerly known as Dial a Ride, this service provides a vital lifeline for elderly and vulnerable residents in communities such as Throwley, which are already without a bus service. If the other services listed below are cut, then demand (and the need) for the Kent Karrier service would increase hugely.

And the following services currently provided by Chalkwell…

8 – serving Sittingbourne, Bapchild, Teynham and Conyer

332 – serving Deans Bottom in Bredgar parish

343, 344 and 345 – serving Newnham, Doddington, Lynsted, Conyer, Teynham, Bapchild, Sittingbourne and Bredgar

And the following school services…

662 – serving Teynham, Lynsted, Doddington, Newnham, Ospringe and Faversham

664 – serving Conyer, Teynham and Lynsted

666 – from Faversham to Sheldwich

(The 666 Stagecoach bus from Faversham to Ashford will remain in service)

I will continue to work hard to raise awareness of these proposed cuts over the coming weeks, as I believe that the social and environmental costs of losing these services greatly outweigh the financial savings they represent. 

I will also be working with officers at the council as I believe the currently stated financial savings have been overestimated. One argument put forward for cutting services has been that bus usage is only at 70% of pre-pandemic levels, but figures I’ve seen suggest that these routes are seeing 89% of their pre-pandemic passenger numbers, which underlines their importance to our communities.

Rich Lehmann

rich.lehmann@kent.gov.uk

Kent County Councillor for Swale East