Chris Stanley, Chair of our Town Council group, announced to our meeting on Wednesday, Nov 22nd, that our petition for a town council had reached the required number of signatures. Canterbury City Council had accepted this fact and were now considering how to conduct the required review of local democracy called a Community Governance Review.
Chris thanked the Town Council group for their many months of work, knocking on doors, answering questions and putting together the various communications, inc this website but said, “This is a marathon, not a sprint. Our focus will now shift to ensuring the Community Governance Review does justice to the proposal and includes as many people in the town as possible. The aim is for elections for Town Councillors in May 2025.”
The picture below shows some members of our Town Council group after the meeting thanking all those who have signed the petition. We will be communicating regularly over the coming year about progress with the Community Governance Review and answering your queries about a town council for Ct5.
After the announcement, the meeting moved on to a number of speakers and discussions about what local people want for the town in terms of planning, sustainability, transport, etc.
The first speakers were Richard Barrett and Julia Seath for the Whitstable Society. The society wanted change that was good for local people. They were particularly aware of how change in one part of town affected all parts, most obviously re infrastructure like transport, schooling, etc.
We shouldn’t build houses without adequate infrastructure to service them. Richard said they’d like the City Council to be able to stop house-building until there was no more sewage in the sea. Nor should traffic build-up from new housing near the old Thanet Way be ignored.
Julia emphasised how the society had campaigned to protect rights of way and public spaces in the last few years. She invited residents who were fearful of a planning application that affected them to get in touch for help and advice. planning@whitstablesociety.info
Neil Boddy for the Thanet Way Residents’ Association spoke to the above plan which he had distributed. He explained the growing trend towards housing development on space which had been designated as protected open space - ‘P’. Prior to 2011, such proposals had been rejected to protect a holistic plan to avoid the Old Thanet Way becoming as congested as it had been prior to the building of the new bypass road, to retain its rural character and maintain a ‘green lane’ for wildlife passage and water permeability.
Current proposals for housing, schools, etc, don’t fit with that plan and it’s not clear that there is any strategy to avoid or limit congestion on the Old Thanet Way.
David Hayward, Chair of our Traffic and Active Travel Group then summarised his group’s response to the consultation on the last district plan. While welcoming CCC’s focus on sustainable travel, it was clear that our town was prone to congestion and dominated by vehicular traffic. The Group’s response reminded KCC of its statutory duty to carry out a full traffic management review of the town centre. We also welcomed the ambition to complete both the Crab and Winkle way cycle and pedestrian route and west from the Harbour to Seasalter and Faversham. There should be a full traffic assessment of each planned housing development. David also voiced concern re pedestrian safety at the Long Reach roundabout and stated that this was likely to get worse.
Sian Pittman then spoke for the Canterbury District Biodiversity Network. The previous District plan had included provisions for a 20% biodiversity net gain, tree cover on large developments and managed transfer of open spaces to CCC. The new plan was likely to commit to the County’s nature recovery strategy and recommendations of the CCC biodiversity working group. These included a greater emphasis on partnership working and moving towards a coastal biodiversity strategy. We needed to connect up Whitstable’s green spaces and provide a green corridor to Canterbury.
Recent developments like the old barracks had sidelined nature and totally lacked aftercare of open spaces. There was no enforcement of related planning conditions and we had to learn from this.
Cllr Chris Cornell responded that the dialogue for a coastal biodiversity strategy was in place. It was very different to rewilding on land apart from sea-grass. Marine protection zones were part of the strategy.
Members of the Forum then commented further on the need for public transport, notably east to west, the need for pedestrian crossings at Long-reach and the benefits of partnership working with the Forum’s Eco Group re the coastal biodiversity strategy.
Cllrs James Flanagan and Keith Bothwell then spoke on behalf of CCC’s local plan working group. The group was politically balanced and had examined some 2,000 responses to the previous local plan. Until the group’s terms of reference went out to public consultation, their dialogue was confidential to ensure they do not prejudge any future decisions. The new draft plan would go to CCC’s cabinet in February and out to public consultation in mid March for twelve weeks. At the end of next year the plan would go to the Inspector.
Forum members asked about planning enforcement by CCC against developers and Southern Water. There is now an enforcement sub-committee of the planning committee so we could expect improved enforcement. Another member requested that consultation on the harbour strategy in December include a presentation and debate. Another requested an update on the No4 bus. CCC were working to maintain a service to Estuary View and looking at options including a hopper bus. Cllr Cornell offered a future presentation on flood protection in response to a request.
Our final presentation was re CCC’s new transport strategy from Cllr Alex Ricketts (pictured above).
The strategy’s aim was to encourage active travel and bus usage. The aim of the three parking bands was to give local people a lower residents’ rate in bands 2 and 3 and encourage us to use those car parks. Councillors felt CCC’s financial situation compelled them to increase charges. Free parking for blue badge holders would return to three (from two) hours and this was widely welcomed. Sturry Rd park and ride would reopen with a lower residents’ rate for the bus and Alex would like to develop park and ride for the coastal towns as well. The loss of free parking in the morning was because it went against CCC’s environment and travel policies. Some exemptions were being considered, however.
Forum members asked about residents’ parking (which requires 80% of residents to support it) and bemoaned the very high cost of residents’ off-street parking for those who could not park on the road, eg Middle Wall.
Finally, Don Sibley, Chair of the Eco Group, stated that Wild About Whitstable week 2024 would begin on August 12th and invited members to get involved. Plastic Free Whitstable would like to re form and there was a relaunch meeting on December 5th at 7.30pm at the Umbrella Centre. All are welcome.
David Hayward stated that Speedwatch was achieving great things but more volunteers were needed. Please apply via info@ctfpeoplesforum.org David also alerted members to the KCC consultation re active travel which had been sent in our previous mailing to members.
The meeting Chair, Michael Bax, thanked everyone for their time and contributions to the meeting. Meeting dates for 2024 would be published shortly.
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