downsmail.co.uk


Pressing for changes in housing situation


LAST week in my piece for the online edition of Downs Mail I heralded a meeting scheduled for July 16, between Maidstone Borough Council (MBC) and officials from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, where MBC were seeking to mitigate the heavy housing burden prescribed to our town by central Government. . This week I am delighted to be able to


report back in the first printed edition of Downs Mail since the Covid-19 lockdown started in March. Prior to last week’s meeting I spoke separately about the issues with Housing Minister Chris Pincher. My aim was to encourage him to work with MBC constructively to accept a reduction in the numbers and extend the timescales for delivery within our local context. The upshot of that discussion, and MBC’s subsequent meeting with officials is as follows. The Government remains steadfast in its commitment to build 300,000 new homes a year across the country, but there may be potential for some reduction in our local housing numbers. Existing plans were based on forecasts of local housing need from 2014, but local numbers from 2016 and 2018 both show a reduction in need and I believe the Government may be willing to review this in the Autumn, in order to maintain public confidence in its approach. Let us see. Furthermore, I was encouraged by the fact that Government may be willing to work with MBC to provide ‘bespoke advice and


By Helen Grant MP for


Maidstone & the Weald


assistance’ relating to its plans for the delivery of garden communities. I would hope this might mean allowing Maidstone to deliver a greater proportion of its housing in the laer years of the plan period to account for the fact that these types of development take longer to complete due to their large scale and complexity. I do believe that garden communities could be an important part of the solution for Maidstone. However, they must be properly planned with appropriate road connections and sufficient other facilities. I do not, for example, believe that the 2000 homes proposed for Marden constitutes a true garden community; but rather an ill thought through plan which would harm a well- established existing community. I will continue to keep the pressure on as


this process unfolds and do everything I can to ensure that new houses are only built in the right numbers, in the right places and with the required supporting infrastructure.


Kent Test ‘must be fair’


RICHARD Long, Kent County Council’s Cabinet Member for Education and Skills, will shortly fi- nalise this year’s arrangements for the Kent Test for admission to grammar school. Unless he makes changes, the test will just be pushed back five weeks into October. This would be a betrayal of ‘ordinary’ and dis-


advantaged Kent children at the expense of those from private schools and/or those whose parents have arranged extensive private tuition. The overwhelming majority of Kent state


pupils have had no schooling since March 23, with a variety of replacement remote learning experiences, depending on the school attended. Two-thirds of the marks awarded in the Kent


Test are for questions on curriculum English and maths, based on work that should have been learnt in school. Even if all children return to school in Septem-


ber, focus will be on catching up basic material, rather than higher-level learning, which will be covered extensively by private tutors and those private schools dedicated to producing success in the Kent Test. Currently, 19% of the cohort is selected


By Peter Read Kent’s leading


education commentator


through the Kent Test, and 6% by a process known as “headteacher assessment”, based on past performance in school. The latter becomes problematic as there will be no past performance on higher level work. Many families may welcome this situation as


it improves their children’s chances of success, but it goes completely against one of the argu- ments for selection, that of social mobility. Kent grammar schools are regularly above the national average for admitting children attract- ing Pupil Premium, and unless changes are made, this will go sharply into reverse. There are ways to overcome this unfairness, and I have put forward one on my website www.kentadvice.co.uk, but at present, there is no sign of KCC recognising its re- sponsibility in this matter.


Opinion


G


UITAR-strumming vicar Rev Mark Pavey has been telling his flock


how he lost his locks in lockdown. He entrusted his wife, Tansye, to give his hair a trim but ended up with a bald patch on the back of his head. Four hours and some judicious snipping later, Rev Pavey was finally happy with the result. “I think it’s quite a good look for me,” the North Downs minister confides.


S


O PLEASING to hear from my very good chum, the Liberal Democrat


county councillor Rob Bird, of Yalding, who tells me his fingers turned green in lockdown. Chez Bird has been replete with French beans, broad beans, runner beans, carrots, courgees, leuce, sprouting broccoli and potatoes … to name but a few.


councillor Jonathan Purle will be taking on Cllr Bird next May for the central Maidstone division in the 2021 county elections. He tells an accomplice: “I rather fancy knocking that Bird off his perch.”


S


from pub to pub on the first weekend of post-lockdown drinking and signed test and trace forms “John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan”.


I I


AM always intrigued by family sporting connections and I am


bowled over by the charming and decorous Tory councillor Loie Parfi- Reid’s rather splendid claim to fame. Her father, Peter Parfi, played cricket for England 37 times and enjoyed a long and distinguished first class career at Middlesex.


S


PEAKING of cricketing prowess, the Maidstone Independent councillor


Eddie Powell, as a schoolboy, took a catch to dismiss the future England all-rounder Graham ‘Picca’ Dilley during a schools’ cup final. Cllr Powell can also boast of playing tennis for Kent under 12s and, at the age of 15, badminton for the county.


resources commiee papers reported a team is currently “developing dynamic performance dashboards”. Nor me.


where landowners were invited to submit plots for possible development. The new name? “Call for blights.”


B T


Chin chin! 47


HERE is a gag doing the rounds about MBC’s “call for sites” exercise


OROUGH council gobbledegook at its finest. Recent policy and


WILL not embarrass the public figure, an Abbot Ale enthusiast, who drifted


PEAKING of whom, I am told that the renegade Tory borough


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