Catch up on the latest political news from across Kent with Rob Bailey, joined by Maidstone Borough Council's Lib Dem Councillor Dinesh Khadka and Conservative Councillor Sean Holden from Kent County Council.
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00:00 Welcome to the Kent Politics Show, live on KMTV. I'm Rob Bailey. Tonight, how deep is
00:27 the crisis on Kent's High Street? Wilco stores in Tunbridge Wells, Thanet, Ashford and Folkestone
00:33 closed for good this week, and all Kent branches are expected to follow by early October. Wilco's
00:39 collapse raises fresh questions about whether councils are doing enough to keep town centres
00:44 viable as shopping habits change. We asked Tudor Price of the Kent Invicta Chamber of
00:49 Commerce what this latest blow means for Kent's High Street.
00:53 We've probably seen quite a bit of damage along the way already. I mean, if you look
00:57 back to 2021, Debenhams, of course, that was a large one. They went, they had about 126
01:04 stores, I think, across the UK. Now, about 45% of those have been re-let and converted
01:11 into different spaces within the High Street. I think that would be the same story for the
01:15 Wilco locations as well. It is difficult. Wilco sort of failed to move with the times.
01:21 It's going to be tough for the people who are currently sort of being made redundant.
01:24 But as I understand it, quite a lot of other retailers and employers in the area are actually
01:29 already offering opportunities for those that are being laid off.
01:33 Well, this week, the boss of John Lewis called for a Royal Commission to save the UK's high
01:37 streets. We couldn't quite pull that together in time for tonight's show, but we do have
01:42 Conservative Sean Holden from Kent County Council and Liberal Democrat Dinesh Khadka
01:47 from Maidstone Borough Council. Thank you so much for joining us.
01:51 Thanks.
01:52 Dinesh, from Maidstone, you represent the High Street Ward and obviously that includes
01:55 where Wilco is in the in the checker centre there in Maidstone. Is this going to be a
01:59 loss that's comparable to what happened to Woolworths in 2008, to Debenhams in 2021?
02:05 Do you think this is a seismic moment for High Street?
02:08 Yes, definitely. I think the Wilco going, just disappearing from the High Street or
02:12 the town centre in Maidstone, does have the sentimental value as well as the local communities
02:17 attachments and then the economy within the shop brings to the community and local business.
02:24 It's a big unit like it is in every Kent town. Wilco's are always very big shops and always
02:28 generally centrally located. Difficult to find a replacement for a shop like that, isn't
02:33 it?
02:34 Yes, it is. I mean, the way I believe at the moment the market is going, it's difficult
02:39 to replace such a large size to something similar. The market that offers to the Maidstone
02:45 resident.
02:46 Sean, we heard there the Emitza Chamber of Commerce saying that Wilco's had failed to
02:50 move with the times. Do you think there's an argument that maybe local authorities have
02:55 also failed to move with the times with things like business rates, with high rents in town
03:00 centres, with footfall and customer habits changing so quickly after the pandemic? Do
03:05 you think there's been a lack of agility in local authorities?
03:09 I don't think that it's the job of local authorities to run high streets or to manage businesses
03:18 which are free enterprise businesses. I think, yeah, there is a lack of a movement with the
03:24 times for many shops and so on. But with the overall understanding of what the high street
03:32 is and will be in the future, I've long said that we can't expect it to carry on as it
03:38 has done in the past and that we should see a change in the use of that space to a much
03:43 more experiential as the new buzzword is. People getting experiences, they go and meet
03:49 their friends there. It's a more social thing. Actually going and buying stuff in the high
03:53 street, more and more people don't do that. And I remember it was a sort of interesting
04:00 moment in my own personal life where my wife said to me some time ago, some years ago,
04:06 do you know we only have bought one Christmas present in a shop this year? And there's no
04:11 denying that the online shopping is where buying things is moving. And I think that
04:18 it would be wrong to see it as the role of the local authority to shape the free enterprise
04:25 market of shops. It's for the market itself to move in that way. I think, yes, sometimes
04:30 business rates can be an impediment and a problem. Taxes can be a problem. Sometimes
04:36 other kinds of regulations. And I think it's for local authorities to get out of the way
04:42 and let business get on with business.
04:45 We should have a klaxon really for the first mention of Christmas in this season of the
04:48 Kemp Politics Show, shouldn't we? Dinesh, do you agree that it's not the job of local
04:53 authorities to be involved in running the high street, given that it is actually one
04:57 of the functions that Maidstone Council has, isn't it?
04:59 Yeah, I mean, it's easy saying that. However, just looking at the factor, like Sean mentioned,
05:06 I totally agree. However, the shopping habit has changed in the last four or five years,
05:13 which we've seen in 2016-17, quite, you know, the big brand, the shop's household has to
05:19 disappear from the market. High street was basically how the shopping habit has been
05:26 changed. However, the extrinsic factor that actually the local business, sorry, local
05:31 council has to work so that it can bring the customer or the visitor to the town, that's
05:36 something definitely the council has to work towards it.
05:40 Some of the things I've been seeing this week, there's been a lot of commentary around this
05:43 idea of the future of the high streets, which you've both been talking about. One of the
05:47 things we're seeing is about business rates. Business rates, obviously, at the moment,
05:50 they're fixed by government, but they're collected locally. They're a strange kind of tax, aren't
05:57 they? Because essentially, they mean that if you're a bricks and mortar business, you're
06:00 paying much higher costs than an online business, which seems to be an automatic disadvantage,
06:05 doesn't it? For high street, town shops, do you think it's time to change that kind of
06:10 approach?
06:11 I think that what we've seen back in 2017-18 is definitely the time to review those measures,
06:16 but they're really penalising the independent shops or the bigger even household brand,
06:23 which is now causing a really massive impact to the local community and local business
06:28 and ultimately the council as well.
06:31 Sean, it's a big source of revenue, business rates. Do you think that there could be any
06:35 possibility of government and local government, both desperate for cash at the moment, doing
06:41 anything to kind of review that and make life easier for businesses?
06:45 Well, business has always argued that, long argued that, and I understand that. And it's
06:51 a sort of odd tax, because it is a property tax in effect, and you can pay it even if
06:59 you're not actually making any money, even if you're not actually even doing any business
07:04 at all. And I think there are some anomalies within it which are quite undesirable, and
07:11 it is an odd tax. And I guess as high street things change, then the government and local
07:18 authorities will have to review how it works. But as you said, large amounts of it go to
07:22 the government, and although it's levied by the local authority, it doesn't come to the
07:27 local authority. And it's not, I don't think, as important a part of the local authority's
07:34 income as council taxes, for instance.
07:37 So yeah, I mean, the government will generally have to look at how it taxes business in the
07:44 high street as business in the high street changes. I'm certain of that. Now, they may
07:50 say, well, if it stops being a shop selling widgets and becomes a cafe and you have a
07:57 line of cafes, we can still tax them just the same as we did the widget shops, and maybe
08:02 they'll do that, and maybe people will stop going to the high streets altogether. So it
08:06 does need a review. I wouldn't go as far as a Royal Commission. And I think that what
08:12 I dislike about that idea is the idea that government runs these things. And I think
08:17 it's for people, you know, small shops, small enterprises, they run themselves. And mostly
08:23 government gets in the way of what they do.
08:26 It's interesting that the Royal Commission is a very odd and kind of almost archaic kind
08:30 of instrument for investigating anything. But there's an element of coordination possibly
08:35 required here, isn't there? One of the challenges for a town centre like Maidstone is ownership
08:40 of the high street is a patchwork quilt, isn't it? There's lots of different landlords. So
08:44 there isn't really a coherent strategy around rent. Businesses aren't really being charged
08:49 rent on the basis of affordability and the type of desirable business that you want.
08:53 So is there a degree to which you think the state needs to get more involved in order
08:58 to ensure the viability? Or is Sean right that this is a free market, the strong survive,
09:04 the weak die?
09:05 I think that definitely my belief is definitely the local authority as well as central government
09:10 has to step in to actually dictate certain practices, how they say actually they're impacting
09:17 for the either rental or the any business rates. And that is actually the finally impacting
09:22 to those independent shops.
09:24 We've seen elements of this around Kent. We've seen things like Ashford Council buying a
09:29 shopping centre and trying to take control of that centre and being able to then do things
09:35 like setting rents and then trying to bring in the kind of businesses they want. Can you
09:38 imagine Maidstone doing something similar?
09:40 Yeah, I think if that model actually proves to be working, definitely one of the factors
09:45 which has actually taken the high street market down is actually the shopping centre type
09:50 of the model. So definitely if that's going to work, then why not the Maidstone Borough
09:56 Council or any other council should be following this.
09:59 Sean, you raised the objections possibly to Royal Commission. It might be quite interesting
10:05 that it came from John Lewis initially, this suggestion, who obviously in Kent tended to
10:10 have an out of town presence anyway. In Tunbridge Wells, I think they're out of town. In Ashford,
10:15 they were out of town before they closed. Waitrose in Maidstone is in Allington. That's
10:21 part of the problem, isn't it? That we've seen an awful lot of trade being pulled away
10:24 from the kind of the gravity of our commerce is moving away from town centres and into
10:30 these kind of suburban areas. Is that something that worries you?
10:35 Well, I don't see one of the local towns. I represent Cranbrook, which is a small town,
10:42 one of the smallest towns in Kent. And they have a very particular style of high street.
10:49 We have a very particular style of high street with niche shopping. It too is suffering from
10:54 the difficulties of the changes in shopping habit and no doubt in terms of business rates.
11:03 But I think that to look at whether the council or the government can start running shops
11:11 on a grand scale, they're not any good at running businesses. They never have been.
11:17 And I suspect they never will be, because it's not what they're for. And it's not what
11:22 the people who work in them have trained to do or grown up to do. And so I'm very much
11:29 opposed to that. And I let the market change as it will. Supermarkets came in and that
11:35 was a radical change in people's shopping habits, which was driven by the market and
11:40 by the... We'll need to wrap up there. I'm ever so sorry,
11:43 Sean, but it's time for a short break. When we come back, we'll ask how deep is the financial
11:47 crisis at Kent County Council. Stay with us.
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15:07 Welcome back to the Kent Politics Show live on KMTV. Next tonight, it's almost a year
15:13 since Kent County Council leader Roger Gough wrote an open letter warning the council faced
15:18 bankruptcy without immediate help from the government. Well, he has a long time in politics
15:23 because this week he insisted the council is not on the brink of bankruptcy after a
15:28 national newspaper listed it as one of six authorities at risk. So is this a sign that
15:33 the council's fortunes are changing? Here's what KCC's cabinet member for finance, Peter
15:38 Oakford, told us earlier today. Absolutely not. I don't think there's any
15:43 getting away from we have severe financial challenges. But issuing a 114 notice is not
15:50 something that's on our agenda. And the way things are, we're looking fairly stable for
15:56 the next 12 to 18 months. And we're going to have to make some savings in order to balance
16:02 our budget. And we're going to have to do so for next year. But at this moment in time,
16:08 as we have said many times, we are not in a position where we will be considering issuing
16:12 a 114 notice. Still here with me is Liberal Democrat Dinesh
16:17 Khadka of Maidstone Borough Council and Conservative Sean Holden from Kent County Council. Sean,
16:23 it was a year ago that Roger Gough said budgets are at breaking point. We're sleepwalking
16:27 into financial disaster. Without a major change, I suspect the large parts of upper tier local
16:33 government will face collapse. Does that still hold true now?
16:37 Well, you just heard Peter Oakford say that it does not. And the talk when I talk amongst
16:44 my Conservative colleagues in the ruling administration, what we are not going to do is to issue a
16:51 114 notice. Councils can't actually go bust, but they issue that notice. That's a legal
16:57 notice. And then commissioners come in and take over. And the disaster for the residents
17:04 is that it means that you are no longer being run by the people you elected to run your
17:09 council. And we are determined that is not going to happen. But it doesn't not happen
17:15 unless you act sensibly and prudently. And that's what we're going to do. It does mean,
17:22 because the pressure on the council's budgets have come from two directions in particular,
17:29 from special educational needs for children and the transport thereof, and also from adult
17:37 social care. And those bear down very hard on the council finances. And in the case of
17:46 special educational needs, Kent issues 20% more than average, if you like, agreements
17:54 that children should go into special educational needs. And then the transport costs can be
17:59 as much as £80 a day for taxis for those children. Now, we have to look at why that's
18:05 happening and what we can do to amend it, and whether or not more of the children should
18:09 be in mainstream education. Adult social care, we have to look at the costs that are arising
18:15 there. But those are legal requirements that we have to carry out. Where we look for savings
18:20 is in what's called the discretionary side of things, which would be in areas like libraries,
18:27 like household waste recycling. There's currently a consultation as to whether we should close
18:35 some. We'll talk about a few of those specific areas of savings in a moment. But the fact
18:40 remains that there's a need, the auditors have told you there's a need for £86 million
18:45 of savings to be made, which is a pretty bleak situation, even if not fully apocalyptic.
18:53 Paul Francis writing in Kent Online this week said, "You're being too timid, that you should
18:57 be shouting about these problems and putting the government under more pressure to offer
19:02 help." Do you accept that's true? I think we should not be timid about making the savings.
19:09 People always call it this euphemism of difficult decisions. And I think some of those have
19:13 to be made. And we have to accept that that is the case. And one, for instance, the household
19:20 recycling, waste recycling things, we're having to look at cutting back on that and on other
19:26 things which the county council does. We have to be ready to make those decisions. The government
19:32 is not going to come and bail us out. It has actually, I think in the last settlement that
19:38 we get around Christmas time, put in more money. And of course, we will always ask for
19:43 more money and say we need that kind of help as Roger Goff did a year ago. But we're still
19:49 here a year ago. We haven't issued a year on, we haven't issued a 114 and we're not
19:54 going to. So I'm not quite clear why Kent was singled out in that. I did see that article.
20:01 And Birmingham City Council's circumstances of going bust are quite different from Kent
20:06 to Kent. I just wonder, I want to bring Dinesh in in a moment because I'm aware that he's
20:10 here. But I mean, that Birmingham question is quite an interesting one because the right
20:13 wing press has made quite a lot of play out of the fact that that's a Labour led council.
20:17 You can kind of feel the general election campaigning of vote Labour and you'll get
20:22 this kind of coming up. That's a much harder message to sell to the public if councils
20:28 like KCC are also saying we're facing an apocalyptic threat. Are you softening your language to
20:33 help the National Party? I would want to help the National Party. And I always do think
20:39 that you don't get great service from a Labour council or a Liberal Democrat, I might say,
20:43 sparing a blushes Dinesh. But the particular things that happened in Birmingham in, for
20:51 instance, the huge bill they have for underpaying women in their employment, which has gone
21:00 on obviously over a long time. We don't have that problem. There's also serious mismanagement
21:05 has been identified. We don't have that either. Yeah, I mean, it's a glib thing to say. That's
21:12 what you get if you if you have a Labour council, if you have a Labour government. I'm not saying
21:17 that. I'm saying that we have a serious issue to address, for instance, in highways repairs.
21:23 You want to talk about potholes. There's been a 35 percent inflation in, for instance, oil
21:30 based materials like bitumen. And we have to look at that and the and the costs of inflation
21:38 in many of the things that the county council done.
21:41 As we're getting into specifics, let's bring Dinesh in at this point, because the big one
21:45 this week was the end of a consultation into youth clubs. Kent County Council is proposing
21:50 to close 80 youth clubs across the county to save nine hundred and thirteen thousand
21:55 pounds out of that big total of savings we've already talked about. Five of those, I think,
21:59 are in Maidstone, including in Shepway and in Parkwood areas where there are several
22:05 clubs a week that are attended by junior and senior children. What impact would those closures
22:09 have, Dinesh, in Maidstone?
22:10 Oh, definitely it will have the massive impact of what we have seen in the last 10, 15 years.
22:18 The service has really been cut down. But this another blow will definitely impact the
22:23 local communities and the local clubs and then the local youth, which have been working
22:28 so hard. And then, you know, this blow is going to be a really, really massive impact.
22:32 The council, Kent County Council, is saying, as Sean has already said tonight, that they
22:37 can't afford to be timid about closures. They have to save money somewhere. But do you think
22:43 what are the long term consequences of closures like these youth club ones, like the children's
22:49 centres that are being kind of rationalised and reduced around the county? Is that a real
22:54 term saving, do you think, that you can make from that kind of cut?
22:58 There might be the short term gain on that, on the financial book. However, what we have
23:03 seen in the last 10, 12 years and then another big cut and reducing those services, it will
23:09 have a long term, definitely disadvantage, especially for the, we're talking about the
23:14 Safeway, the Parkwood, those, you know, the not, you know, the highly being benefited
23:19 with the other privileged area. We're talking about a very, very, you know, the hard community
23:25 pocket.
23:26 Sean, one of the centres that would close one of the clubs is in Cranbrook. How do you
23:31 feel about the proposal to close those?
23:35 Well, as I said, the usual expression of difficult decisions, but we have to make the savings
23:41 because we cannot go to a position where the council is issuing a 114 notice. And those
23:49 savings will hurt and they will affect people across communities. And there's no getting
23:56 away from that. One of the things I think we've tried to do, though, in children's centres,
24:00 for instance, is to look at how we can maybe reduce the cost and spending on them, but
24:05 look at where people will still have a reasonable availability of children's centres, maybe
24:12 a bit further away, but not out of their reach altogether. The one in Cranbrook, I think
24:18 they're looking at concentrating those youth hubs in Tunbridge Wells, which is some distance
24:25 away. And I'm sorry that that is going to happen, but we have to make the savings and
24:33 there's no way out of that.
24:36 Do you agree? Do you think that this is the best way to go about saving the financial
24:40 viability of Kent County Council? Is this what the Liberal Democrats would do?
24:44 I think just hitting those very special needs, the pocket of where the fund has been deployed,
24:52 I think that this is really, really crucial. We save those, especially the special needs,
24:56 the public transport, those are things that have been hit in the last four or five years
25:00 really badly. And going back to actually trying to save the money for the sector is not the
25:05 right way.
25:06 And we started off talking about the issues in town centres. You've mentioned potholes
25:12 already, Sean. The quality of the roads and ongoing problems, I live in Maidstone, I know
25:17 exactly how bad, occasionally the traffic has been through there as various bits of
25:21 road work is being carried out. Are we at the moment facing a case where we have to
25:24 accept poorer quality roads, slower repairs as the cost of protecting these other services?
25:30 Is that something that you think people will be supportive of?
25:33 Dinesh, do you think people will support that?
25:37 Yeah, I think with the road condition of potholes, what we are seeing now is that over the years
25:45 they're not, you know, they're properly investing on our road. That's the way of saying it now.
25:49 It's not the beast from the east caused all the havoc. It's not properly invested in the
25:54 last few years. And then another thing is that we're not actually focusing on the quality
25:59 of the work, what cases you've been putting in.
26:01 We only have a very small amount of time left, Sean, but you've missed your target in the
26:04 last three months on pothole repairs by quite some way, haven't you?
26:08 Yes, I dispute that the target's been missed. We had a difficult winter last year because
26:15 of incessant rain, freeze, rain, freeze. And we had pothole reports five times as high
26:21 as the previous year. So we've had those problems. But in fact, we have been making progress
26:26 in dealing with potholes and we haven't under-invested in potholes and in the roads at all.
26:31 I'm very, very sorry, but we do have to end there. That's all we've got time for here
26:35 at the Ken Politics Show. Thank you to both of my guests for coming into the studio and
26:38 to being with us. We'll be back soon. Stay with us because Ken tonight is coming up next
26:43 with all the latest news from around the county. Have a great evening. Good night.
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