Dear Mr. Chard

Thank you for your below email advising of KCC's purported proactivity in keeping people moving across the county. Sadly, I wish the councillors of Waltham, near Canterbury, could report similar successful engagement from Kent County Council. The attached PDF will assist you with location of the village.

For the last two years, we have been attempting to ascertain from KCC exactly what the arrangements are for the village in terms of snow ploughing. We have met with a singular lack of success in that whilst Richard Dixon advises us that two local farmers have been engaged for snow ploughing, no practical action has been taken to put formal arrangements in place. Once again, after the disaster of February 2009 no action at all has been taken during the current period of bad weather and the roads have been impassable and the village isolated.

After the poor weather in February 2009, Waltham PC sought to locate three additional grit bins, strategically placed in the village. In Spring 2009, a survey was carried out by your Highways Department which agreed to the proposed location of these three salt bins. We secured funding for one of them from Cllr. John Simmonds. When we then attempted to order the 3 bins in June, we were told by Richard Dixon in November, that a  moratorium had been placed on new grit bins, pending a KCC September 2009 review of winter arrangements. We subsequently wrote asking what was the outcome of the review and were told that it had been deferred. In the meantime, another department of KCC wrote to us asking why we had not spent the grant for one of the grit bins. Our Clerk responded that we were still waiting on the outcome of a KCC review. Left hand, right hand, comes to mind.

So, we are no further forward and it does not sit comfortably that KCC sends out self-congratulatory emails about its foresight and forward planning. That has absolutely not been our experience and the muddled bureaucracy and time-wasting has been appalling and detrimental to our local community.

Is there anyone at KCC who can advise us when we can order the grit bins we need and tell us what snow ploughing arrangements are in place for the village - and actually implement the process before this current winter ends.

John Howard
Chairman
Waltham PC

Planning applications

CA/09/01650/FUL: 1 Waddenhall Cottages, Waddenhall. 
Two storey extension to side of dwelling (revised scheme)

There were no objections to this proposal.

Village hall bookings

Enquiries about hire and bookings for Waltham Village Hall should be made to Mr. Tony Best on 01227 700433 or by email to hall.bookings@waltham.org

Hire charges for the hall are:

Sunday – Thursday £5.00 per hour (or part thereof)
Friday – Saturday £7.50 per hour (or part thereof)
with concessions available for organisers of local initiatives.

This page last updated 01/11/2010 12:08