By Local Democracy reporter Jordan Ifield
A Thanet councillor left a transport meeting in protest because a Kent County Council officer wasn’t present to answer questions.
Thanet District Council’s joint transport board meets four times a year and councillors talk about issues with a Kent County Council (KCC) officer. Usually this would be Paul Valek, KCC’s Highways District Manager.
On Thursday 9 July the board were due to discuss a 30mph speed limit on Nash Road in Margate among other topics.
However the meeting was quickly derailed after councillors realised a KCC officer wouldn’t be present, without sending apologies for absence.
This enraged Thanet Cllr Trevor Shonk (Cons) who left the meeting and said it was “disgraceful”.
He said: “I’ve got a whole raft of issues to discuss, there’s no point in me sitting here because there’s no officers to talk to, so therefore I shall pack up and go home.
“It’s absolutely disgraceful that we give up our time and I’ve heard excuses from KCC that they can’t come out because they’re cold. These people are on different planets.
“I do try to represent Ramsgate and Newington and at the moment I’m hitting a brick wall.”
Thanet District Council meetings are regularly livestreamed to the authority’s Youtube channel so members of the public can watch.
However unlike other councils, Thanet doesn’t have the technology to simultaneously hold a livestream of the meeting and have someone speak virtually.
This means anyone wanting to speak at a Thanet council meeting must attend in person and on this occasion no one from KCC did so.
Other council members were further damning of the situation, including chair of the committee and KCC Cllr Rosalind Binks (Cons) who said: “I believe in the Elon Musk view if you don’t turn up on a Monday we’ll assume you’ve resigned.
“Officers should be here, I know it’s inconvenient to come in the evening but I think it’s part and parcel of the job at a certain level.”
She did also confirm her quarrel wasn’t with officers, but the KCC cabinet member for transport, Cllr David Brazier, who she claims told officers not to be present.
Signing off the meeting Thanet Cllr David Hart (Cons) said: “I think it’s disgraceful the officer isn’t here, but maybe the cabinet member (Brazier) should be here instead.
“Realistically someone should be here, because if we do have an issue I can go to an officer and I was going to talk to them about a couple of things tonight.
“If the cabinet member wants to stop his staff coming here then maybe they should get off his back side and come here.
“The officer we have is a very good chap, works very hard for this area and we are very lucky to have him, but I think he’s doing a disservice by not turning up.”
‘Effective use of staff time’
Responding to the issue a Kent County Council (KCC) spokesman said the decision wasn’t made by Cllr Brazier: “Decisions on managing the most efficient and effective use of staff time are taken in every local authority by senior officers, not council members.
“As a council we are committed to participating in Joint Transportation Boards (JTBs), which are a vital mechanism for discussing how we can develop our infrastructure to help keep Kent moving safely.
“Technology allows us to do this virtually for routine business in a way that is environmentally friendly and reduces the amount of time travelling to and from meetings.
“Unfortunately, Thanet District Council is currently unable to offer KCC a virtual platform while simultaneously livestreaming the meeting to the public.
“While we will always address any concerns raised at Joint Transportation Boards (JTBs) outside of the meeting, we would encourage Thanet District Council to introduce a system that allows KCC’s virtual attendance.”
No ability to host hybrid meetings
Meanwhile a Thanet District Council spokesman said it would “encourage” anyone wanting to speak to the council should do so in person:
“We livestream all of our public council meetings so that as many members of the public as possible can view proceedings. There is often a high level of interest in the items discussed at the Joint Transportation Board (JTB) meetings.
“We do not have the ability to conduct ‘hybrid’ meetings (meetings with virtual and in person attendees that are also simultaneously live-streamed to the public). To do this would require significant levels of financial investment in our audio-visual equipment.
“In June 2021, KCC officers remotely accessed a Thanet Joint Transportation Board (JTB) meeting, which meant that we were unable to livestream the meeting, thus depriving members of the public the opportunity to observe.
“As we are unable to facilitate hybrid meetings, we would always encourage external participants to attend JTB meetings in person to present their reports and take questions from Councillors.”
Good for Trevor. Appalling treatment of Thanet by KCC.
Appalling story. District Council appears not to have made it into the 21st century and the County Council lot in Maidstone treats Thanet with its usual contempt. This is a vital area and all the KCC councillors for Thanet and a cross section of District reps should be part of it. Hurry the day when we have a unitary authority here.
This is the exactly what the Council should be investing their cash in rather than investing it in paying off incompetent bullies.
If it’s not in West Kent, KCC really don’t give a damn.
Hybrid technology for hybrid meetings is hardly complex or expensive. The rest of the world has over two years to embrace this fundamentally necessary new normal and TDC chooses to spend our money on employment disputes and public funding of private companies based on the port. At what point will this Council be deemed failing?
Yet another shocking and depressing TDC element to just another day in Thanet. Technology isn’t a mystery. It is a simple basic.
Totally agree with councillor Binks. You dont turn up, or send apologies before the meeting, the presumption is you have resigned.
So according to tory run Kent county council decisions are made by council officers not cabinet members. Tory councillors quite rightly angered by the situation. Civil war has broken out in the local tory party. Couldn’t make it up!!!
Didn’t many members leave South Thanet Labour after Corbyn failed so miserably, or is this just an ugly rumour?
Slight exaggerations of truth here Mr Lewis, but you’re Labour so comments don’t count!
Well done Trevor & Ros for delivering positive Councillor Judgement! Hero’s!
True peter, but many others have joined, usual turnover. You miss my point, conservative county councillors blaming their own cabinet member for the undemocratic way he is running his department.
It’s shocking that TDC don’t have the technology in place to duel stream rather than wasting carbon emissions sending someone down from Maidstone. It’s not expensive and is likely holding Thanet back from other advances. I work remotely on conference calls with staff in India, US and Ireland, the only issue is timing of the call due to time zones but we make it work through flexible working. It saves thousands in airfares, hotels and unproductive time. Plus we’re winning more contracts as decisions can be made quicker. It’s about time TDC was brought into the 21st Century.
Well done Trev ! Hey you tell them to sort themselves out and you dont care about their cancel culture.
Is it possible that if a meeting with KCC ever does go ahead that the very narrow Nash Road ; which is coping with large amounts of traffic with the huge housing development adjacent ; could be upgraded to a much wider road . At busy times Nash Road and Ramsgate Road are jammed and any roadworks or accidents cause chaos
Most of Nash Road COULD be widened, but the biggest problem would be where the old farm shop at the WC end was (and I hope they don’t demolish that old farm house).
it sounds like the old boris johnson trick , clear off out the way and avoid the flack
It takes a few minutes to send an email to inform the council that there councillor is unable to attend due to whatever the circumstances may be. To me an email is the least I would expect, ifa councillor or the council (KCC) cannot be that bothered what are they like at doing the proper work of the council (KCC). I hope our local KCC councillors take the opportunity to ask why and how they could not be bothered to give any excuse as to why no reason was given to the absence of a Councillor on Thursday 9th June??.
Don’t upset Trevor, you will make an enemy forever…Cllr David Brazier needs firing! What an absolute pig.
This is not about the technology of TDC but about the non attendance of KCC officers.. I’m part of the JTB and pre Covid there was never an issue with attendance. The officer in question lives in Thanet so it’s not greater environmental saving doing it virtual or in person. Councillors give up there personal time to attend these important meetings aswell and we are not highly paid senior officers.
Why is tdc backwards with technology? I just want to see & pay rent on-line like other councils have done for ages.
Most commentators on here seem to have completely missed the point.
The problem is that the KCC Highways Manager was instructed by either the KCC Highways Director (his boss) or the KCC Cabinet Member with responsibility for highways to not attend the meeting.
Those responsible for the decision then failed to notify anybody at TDC in order that the meeting could be re-scheduled.
Those responsible for the decision need to be held to account for themselves and their actions.
Really nice to read Councillors lining up to slam an officer on a public forum. Anyone can find out who they are talking about.
I really thought that the Council were moving on from leadership based on bullying but it’s obviously alive and kicking !
From reading some of these quotes from Councillors is it really any wonder why KCC don’t want to go out of their way to help out ? Disgraceful behaviour.
In defence of local tory councillors nobody has blamed the officer but blaming their conservative cabinet member david brazier for ordering the non attendance of the said officer
I’m not sure I agree with you Barry. I have listed the comments from the article and subsequent thread below:
Cllr Shonk “It’s absolutely disgraceful that we give up our time and I’ve heard excuses from KCC that they can’t come out because they’re cold. These people are on different planets.”
Cllr Binks ” “I believe in the Elon Musk view if you don’t turn up on a Monday we’ll assume you’ve resigned.
“Officers should be here, I know it’s inconvenient to come in the evening but I think it’s part and parcel of the job at a certain level.”
Cllr Hart “I think it’s disgraceful the officer isn’t here, but maybe the cabinet member (Brazier) should be here instead”
Cllr Fellows “The officer in question lives in Thanet so it’s not greater environmental saving doing it virtual or in person. Councillors give up there personal time to attend these important meetings aswell and we are not highly paid senior officers.”
It’s shameful behaviour. By all means make it a political attack on an opposition party but lining up to give an officer a public kicking really isn’t acceptable.
I agree with “Thanetian Blind”‘s last sentence.
Dear John, thanks for the feedback on the point of the article and helping me to undersrand it.
Physical attendance would be less essential had TDC got its tech right.
I do agree, nobody should name or indicate an employee. Anything could have happened in their day to stop them attending. Be kind.