In our latest newsletter we have much to report, including good news for the Bandstand and community safety (😃😃😃) as well as frustrating news on the latest Local Plan (😬😬😬). But whatever the weather, as your local Conservative councillor team, we always work hard for your interests in the Bay.
Local Plan = no hospital + housing at Beacon Rd
The latest version of Canterbury City Council’s draft Local Plan contains some big disappointments, to put it mildly.
At a district level, the Labour-Liberal coalition has abandoned the plan to build a new hospital in Canterbury, using the land designated for that hospital for housing instead.
Closer to home, it is also proposing to use the former hockey & tennis club site at Beacon Road for housing, rather than for a community use. We know this is upsetting for the many Herne Bay residents who had hoped to reopen the site for sports, recreation or as a new green space.
All is not lost though, and we have launched a survey to get your views on the future of this land in the centre of town. Please do click the link and complete it so that we can feed this into the public consultation and subsequent discussions at the Council.
Road safety in Beltinge
Following the tragic death of a motorist on Reculver Road, Cllr Dan Watkins has been working with local residents to try and improve road safety. This included helping a local resident to hold a successful public meeting with the Police, Canterbury Council and Kent County Council on September 1st, where a large crowd was able to feed in their observations and ideas for the future.
Speeding on Reculver Road has long been an issue, which is why your local Conservative team were pleased to have negotiated an extensive package of road calming measures as a planning condition of the development of the Hillborough estate. However, these works have been delayed and at the public meeting everyone called upon Kent County Council to get on and build them before further accidents occur, using forward-funding if required. We shall monitor progress with interest.
Crime curtailed
The Spring saw a dreadful escalation in crime and anti-social behaviour (ASB), drawing national attention at times. This culminated in a public meeting in June, organised and run by Cllrs Liz Harvey and Dan Watkins and attended by 400 local residents.
We want to thank everyone who supported the meeting and who reported ASB to the Police, as requested. As a result, we were able to get additional police officers in Herne Bay, in addition to security guards patrolling the shopping streets which were worst affected.
It should be no surprise that the extra police presence resulted in more stop-and-searches, dispersals, arrests and sentences, leading to a drop in crime. Speaking to the shops and residents regularly as we do, there has been a big improvement and people are feeling much safer.
This is a great example of ‘people power’ in action, and as your local Conservative councillors we will continue the work to try and prevent future spikes in crime, not least by supporting a number of excellent community initiatives aimed at engaging with our young people, many of which came forward at the public meeting.
Asylum seeker accommodation
Over the summer, the news broke that the Home Office had arranged for a building in central Herne Bay to be used to accommodate asylum seekers. As the official opposition on Canterbury City Council, this was a surprise to us, and we were even more shocked when we discovered the Council had been in contact with the Home Office on this topic.
While we welcome the government's decision to stop using hotels to house asylum seekers, we are concerned by the lack of transparency of how locations are found for housing and the potential impact on communities. This case highlights how at the moment your local councillors are not informed and we think this needs to change to ensure your elected representatives who know the area best are involved in identifying accommodation sites. We will keep tackling this in the interests of community harmony and to ensure fairness for all residents.
As the Council has been less than forthcoming on this topic, we have submitted a Freedom Of Information request to force it to disclose its involvement in the decision, in the hope that better decisions be made in future. So while other political parties shout from the sidelines, your local Conservative team is taking practical action.
Local ward updates
As there is so much going on across Herne Bay, below we provide further updates for each individual ward from your local Conservative team. Just click through the ward links provided:
- Heron – David Thomas and Liz Harvey - news on the Bandstand
- Reculver – Rachel Carnac
- Beltinge – Jeanette Stockley and Ian Stockley
- Herne & Broomfield – Grace Paget and Robert Jones
- Greenhill – Dan Watkins
- West Bay – Rachel Carnac
With best wishes,
Dan, Rachel, David, Ian, Jeanette, Liz, Grace and Robert
Your Local Conservative Team
