Kent County Council Register of Interests: Questions Extend Beyond Reform UK
Byline Times says it’s “not politically partisan” and promises to follow stories “wherever” they go, “without fear or favour”. Yet its investigation into [...]
Kent County Council
Kent and Medway LGR Paused as Government Reviews Option 4B and Orders Councils to Stop Work
Kent and Medway’s Local Government Reorganisation hasn’t been cancelled. But Whitehall has now told councils to stop implementing July’s decision because ministers may [...]
Kent County Council Staff Suspensions: Seven Cases Lasted a Year or More as Average Hit 166 Days
Kent County Council says disciplinary issues should be dealt with through a “swift and effective process”. Yet its latest figures show staff suspensions averaging 166 [...]
Part 3: Hodson’s Chilmington Green Collapse — £211.9m in Creditor Claims, Six Administrations and 5,750 Homes at Stake
Chilmington Green was supposed to be much more than a housing estate. Ashford planned for a new community of up to 5,750 homes, schools, shops, parks and roads, backed by [...]
Kent Local Government Reorganisation: KCC Considers Judicial Review of Option 4B
Reform-led Kent County Council says the Government selected a financially weaker model for reorganising Kent and failed to address serious concerns about the county’s [...]
Bradstow School Closed — Now Kent and Wandsworth Are Fighting Over £4.58m in SEND Fees
Bradstow School in Broadstairs educated and cared for children with some of the most complex special educational needs and disabilities. Kent County Council didn’t merely [...]
KCC’s £100m AI Surveillance Framework: The GDPR Guide That Thinks It’s About Electric Cars
Kent County Council’s national surveillance framework can help public bodies buy facial-recognition cameras, artificial-intelligence surveillance, biometrics, ANPR, thermal [...]
Kent Council Debt: Borrowing Reaches £2.45bn as Medway Overtakes KCC Ahead of Local Government Reorganisation
New Government figures show nine of Kent’s 14 councils borrowing more than two years ago. With four new unitary councils due in 2028, those liabilities aren’t simply [...]
I Run a Care Home in Kent: Overseas Care Workers Are Essential to Social Care
This is a Guest Post I run a care home in Kent. That means when politicians talk about “foreign labour”, I don’t see a statistic or a convenient line for social media. [...]
KCC Scraps £14.5m Junction 11 Waste Transfer Station for Folkestone & Hythe After £722,000 Spend
Kent County Council is preparing to abandon its planned waste transfer station (marked in orange below) beside Junction 11 of the M20, writing off around £722,000 already [...]
Exclusive: Kent and Medway Councils Agreed £11.9m LGR Fund Before Government Chose Option 4B
On 16 July 2026, ministers finally settled the future shape of local government in Kent and Medway. Option 4B had won. Four new unitary councils would replace the existing [...]
Kent County Council’s £4m NHS Invoice: Zena Cooke, Ivor Duffy and the Missing Evidence
Zena Cooke (pictured below left) has moved on. So has Ivor Duffy (pictured below right). Cooke is now Lambeth Council’s Corporate Director of Resources and its statutory [...]
Kent County Council Exit Payments: £1.66m Gap Between Official Figures
Kent County Council says its efficiency drive is about making “every penny count”. Yet its 2025/26 accounts record £1.112m of exit packages while the Government’s [...]
Kent SEND Deficit More Than Doubles to Nearly £300m as KCC Forecasts Another £110m
Kent County Council made a decision on 5 August to accept £12.155 million of new Government money for SEND reform. But several pages into the accompanying report sits the [...]
Oaken Wood Quarry Expansion Moves Closer After KCC Backs Plan by Six Votes
Kent County Council hasn’t approved a quarry extension into Oaken Wood—but by keeping the site in its minerals plan, it has moved that prospect a considerable step [...]
Kent County Council Reform UK Led Audit Committee ‘Not Effective’ as Camilla Black May Resign
Kent County Council’s only independent audit committee member says the body isn’t working, serious questions aren’t being answered and the people responsible for [...]
Why KCC’s Folkestone Library Footfall Comparison Is Nonsense: Grace Hill v Sandgate Road
Brian Collins arrived at KCC’s Cabinet meeting brandishing two figures as though he’d just cracked the Enigma code. Grace Hill library received 4,613 visits in June 2022; [...]
Kent Local Government Reorganisation: Four Unitary Councils, Debt and Costs — Long Read
Kent knows where the new boundaries will run. It still doesn’t know who’ll inherit the mortgage. Steve Reed MP Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local [...]
Kent Local Government Reorganisation: Four Unitary Councils and One Almighty Hangover
What follows isn’t a leaked meeting or a quotation from any named council officer. It’s an imagined pub conversation translating Kent’s local government shake-up into [...]
Folkestone A Brighter Future: £22m Project Delayed by at Least 17 Months
Folkestone & Hythe District Council says Folkestone – A Brighter Future is now “80% complete”. It’s a neat little figure, polished until it shines: the sort of [...]
Free School Meals In Folkestone & Hythe Rise From One In Five Pupils To Almost One In Three
The free-school-meals (FSM) line in Folkestone & Hythe doesn’t wobble. It climbs. All-schools district data shows the rate rising from 19.8% in 2020 to 32.6% in 2026. [...]
KCC DOLGE: Reform UK’s Waste Hunt Finds “No Obvious Wasteful Spending” After £22.7m Overspend
Reform arrived at County Hall promising to hunt waste. Then KCC’s own DOLGE paper said the job was to check “there was no obvious wasteful spending”. That’s the [...]
KCC’s £22.7m Overspend Punctures Reform’s Waste-Cutting Promise
The Tories set Kent County Council’s 2025/26 budget in February, before they lost office. Reform has run KCC since May 2025. By the end of March, the council was £22.7m [...]
The Long Read: KCC Banks Solar Farm Cash as Reform Says No to Romney Marsh Panels
Reform-led Kent County Council says it wants to protect Kent farmland from excessive solar development. Fair enough. But the council also owns solar farms, including a [...]
Kent Travel Saver: Reform’s “People of Kent” Promise Fails the £35 Bus Test
Kent County Council’s £35 Kent Travel Saver rise survived scrutiny on Thursday. But the meeting left one hard question idling at the stop: when Reform says it will put [...]