Agenda and minutes

Councillor David Hirst opened the meeting, and welcomed the attendees.

Canterbury Members introduced themselves and outlined the districts they represented.

Apologies were received from Kent County Councillors Graham Gibbens; Michael Northey and Martin Vye.

No interests were declared.

Ruth Goudie presented a PowerPoint presentation.

Kent Highway Services (KHS) has undergone major changes in the past year.  The move from district to county responsibility has necessitated a restructure.

There now is an alliance with partners: Jacobs; and Ringway.

In 2007 a complete transformation has led to a complete re-look at service delivery.

The greater use of hand held technology is now used to record faults which are uploaded to the mainframe and the work commissioned.

There is an embargo on speed limit changes across Kent. Until this review takes place and reports, the embargo will stay in place.

The use of interactive speed signs is ongoing and the Parish Council speed watch schemes take place. The police support the outcome and enforcement following these initiatives.

The public can use the contact number of 08458247800 to report a fault.  A reference number will be given that is unique to the call and updates will be given using the reference number.  If it is regarded as a priority, then the work will take place within two hours.  A range of information and fact sheets are available from the contact centre.

Questions from the public.
Q. Potholes – time it takes to get potholes repaired, and frequently the quality is poor.

Ruth Goudie indicated that an initial repair is carried out by a rapid response team (splat and pat).  Then a more substantive repair is carried out by the highways repair team.  There is a finite budget that determines these substantive repairs.

Q. Congestion – what survey work is done on traffic management?

Jacobs undertake frequent traffic management surveys.

The attendees indicated that there was ongoing concern that “temporary” repairs all to often become “permanent”.

Q. Public Rights of Way

The PROW team are not under KHS.  There is a limited budget and this therefore limits what can be done.

Q. Freedom Pass – this has cut down congestion and is spreading the school start and end times with young people making a broader range of journeys.  Canterbury is a success area.

Q The A28 Dual Carriageway.

The Highways Agency is responsible for critical maintenance.  The costs of repairs have tripled.  Kent County Council is lobbying the Highways Agency to get these repairs done.  This is a central government issue.

Ruth Goudie was thanked for her presentation and responding to the concerns of the audience.

Ken Burkin from Kent Refugee Asylum Network (KRAN) spoke of the issue of unaccompanied asylum seekers in Canterbury.

These young people are arriving here by hook or by crook, there are 3000 in the United Kingdom.  Twenty five percent of these are in Kent.  These young people can spend up to five weeks in the assessment centre, and then are out in the community.

“Finding your feet” is a project that has been funded by KCC.  It provides ESOL training.  It was a project managed by the Scrine Foundation by was recently taken over by KRAN.

The ongoing funding of the project is at a very critical point.  Previous support from KCC was welcome, but the inability to receive core funding from KCC puts this project in a precarious position.

These young people often don’t speak English and many are illiterate and will struggle.  A great number drop out of the course run by Canterbury College.

KRAN works closely with KCC asylum service and County Hall. Many people regard KRAN as a critical part of KCC’s asylum team!

All the young people are referred to us by KCC, and in the past we have received grants through the Members delegated grants schemes.

The £35k we received recently enabled the project to work until April 2008, but ongoing mainstream funding is needed.

There is an awareness that Kent County Council is underfunded from Central Government.  But the project does not receive any support from Canterbury City Council.

Gill Montgomery from Partnership with Parents (PwP)gave a very brief overview of her work.

The work of Partnership with Parents is not to be advocates, but to offer an informed choice for parents.

The twenty three clusters of schools across Kent must all have a parent forum, we support these and facilitate a range of events to achieve these.  Not one size fits all, they are all different.

Partnership with Parents picks up the gaps in provision, for example holiday activities.  Early intervention is the key to helping parents and schools and children.

The Community Liaison Manager spoke about the three grant schemes delegated to the Canterbury Members.  Interested groups were invited to contact their County Councillor who would consider their request for grant support.

All grant schemes are over-subscribed and Members must give consideration to the needs of local communities and value added schemes of work.

There were no additional questions from the public.

The meeting closed at 9.10pm