Catch up on the latest political news from across Kent with Rob Bailey, joined by leader of Dartford Borough Council, Conservative Jeremy Kite, and Labour's Lauren Sullivan from Gravesham.
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00:20 Welcome to the Kent Politics Show live on KMTV. I'm Rob Bailey and thank you for
00:26 joining us again after our short summer break. We've returned into a storm of
00:30 political hot air, specifically the hot air which spews out of car exhaust pipes.
00:35 That's because an invisible border was built between Kent and London this week.
00:39 It will cost some motorists £12.50 per day to cross it. The ultra-low
00:45 emission zone is intended to improve air quality in the capital, but some people
00:49 in Dartford, Swanley and Sevenoaks now live within yards of the EULES without
00:53 ever having had the chance to vote for it. Sophia Akin asked Dartford residents
00:58 how it has affected them.
01:01 Now this doesn't look too different from your typical weekday commute from
01:06 Dartford into London, except from now on it's going to be really different for
01:10 certain motorists. As from today, London's ultra-low emission zones have
01:14 officially expanded to cover all of London's boroughs. So from now on, for
01:18 someone's car who isn't EULES compliant, entering this zone is going to cost you
01:22 £12.50. This expansion has meant the area is now encompassing 5 million extra
01:29 people, including many in Kent, something Dartford locals spoke out against.
01:34 I think it's bang out of order. Sadiq Khan is killing London. People will not
01:40 survive. We're in a crisis zone, high inflation, people struggling to eat and
01:45 now he's expanding the EULES. I will not pay any fines if they send bailiffs to
01:50 my door, they're not coming in. I can understand the charge, but it's too much.
01:55 I'm a gas engineer, borough engineer and I work in London most of the time and the
02:00 vehicle that I've got now is barely 10 years old, so it falls out of the EULES
02:06 compliancy. So the only alternative is to pay £45,000 to replace my
02:13 vehicle. So effectively I can't work in London anymore, can't go past Craiford
02:18 actually, so my van is basically obsolete. And he wasn't the only business
02:23 taking a hit. Full Farm on the Bromley-Kent border fears soon they'll
02:28 start losing volunteers. They recently had to get rid of their animal ambulance
02:33 as the vehicle wasn't EULES compliant. Thankfully we've got a very, very loyal
02:38 supporter base. They've been amazing and rallied around and we have now raised
02:41 enough money to purchase a new vehicle. One thing that it will really impact is
02:45 our volunteers. We have around 300 people volunteer with us on a regular basis. A
02:49 lot of those people come from Kent and the surrounding area and if they don't
02:54 have a compliant vehicle it's now going to cost them money to come and volunteer,
02:57 which we have already been told some of the volunteers aren't going to be able to
03:01 come anymore because of the additional cost. The Mayor of London has said the
03:05 decision to expand the EULES London-wide was a difficult one, but necessary to
03:10 save lives, protect children's lungs and help prevent asthma, dementia and other
03:16 health issues. It's a brilliant day. My son suffers with asthma and so do I, but
03:22 my son has it particularly badly and really suffers from exacerbations on
03:27 high pollution days and I think that we need to call together on central London
03:32 to fund proper scrappage and proper support for those individuals. As EULES
03:37 paves the way for a greener future, will Kent motorists learn to adapt to these
03:42 new road rules or will they continue to fight against it?
03:45 Sophia Akin for KMTV. Here with me is the leader of Dartford Borough Council,
03:50 Conservative Jeremy Kite and Labour's Lauren Sullivan from Gravesham who leads
03:54 the opposition at Kent County Council. Thanks so much for joining us. Jeremy,
03:59 you're the leader at Dartford Council, it's the borough that's most adjacent to
04:03 this in Kent. What kind of a reaction have you had this week? Oh it's been huge
04:07 and local people have been building up to this day hoping it wouldn't come and
04:10 then on Tuesday it arrived and exactly as we expected. I mean it's a perfect
04:15 storm of stupidity isn't it and I don't think Siddique Khan, I'm pleased to say
04:20 he thinks there's still merits in it, but I don't think many other people do.
04:23 You know we had a situation where 90% of the cars were compliant, the other 10%
04:28 were undoubtedly heading that way and suddenly he's intervened just to say I
04:32 could make millions of pounds out of this. I think it's a disastrous policy.
04:36 Lauren, it's a Labour policy, obviously that's Siddique Khan, the
04:41 London Mayor is a Labour politician. Do you support it and have you heard
04:44 people talking about it positively this week? Okay so let's just be clear on
04:50 the facts here. So why is it being brought in? Well under Covid and the
04:55 TfL bailout which needed to be done by the government, the then Secretary of
04:59 State Grant Shapps in the letter including the funding to this accelerated
05:04 and required the acceleration of the new ULES. So let's get our facts straight,
05:09 there was that letter that's come out. Does it need to happen now? I don't think
05:13 it does because actually there hasn't been enough time for the scrappage
05:16 scheme, for the cars that are nearly there compliant to be there. But also
05:22 when you look at the surroundings on this area, in the centre you've got
05:26 fantastic network of public transport, on the outside you haven't got
05:30 that public transport investment. So before that what is the genuine
05:34 alternative? And actually when you look at Kent and actually even trying to get
05:37 from Kent into London, the public transport is pretty dire even in
05:42 Kent County Council which again has cut more bus services. So actually no I'm not
05:47 a great big supporter of this. I understand why it is, the
05:52 motivations for it absolutely but the acceleration and also the scrappage
05:56 scheme, the finances is not enough. There are other government finance scrappage
06:02 schemes across the country, they didn't choose to step in here even though it
06:06 was under their directive. So this is paying politics isn't it?
06:10 And that's the interesting part of this isn't it Jeremy, because we've been
06:13 talking about this for a long time now and it's been very abstract but now it's
06:16 real. There are people in Dartford, in Swanley, in Sevenoaks who might have
06:21 elderly relatives or poor relatives living just a few miles from their home
06:24 now having to weigh up whether they can afford to make that journey. Tradesmen
06:27 who can't go to work potentially because their margins are so tight they can't
06:31 afford to pay this on top. It's now a question of Kent County Council and the
06:35 Borough Council finding a solution or putting pressure on the government to
06:38 give some help to people isn't it? It can't be can it? Once you've given
06:42 powers to a mayor you cannot accept this kind of thought transference and say
06:47 this is a disastrous policy, it's affecting people really badly, I wish I
06:50 hadn't done it but now I've done it, please can you all come to our rescue
06:53 and put loads of public money into getting me out of this mess. That isn't
06:57 the way politics works, it's not the way the mayoralty works. The mayor has got
07:00 the power, the mayor could have made these decisions to say I've made a
07:03 mistake here. I personally, I've always had a theory that for about a year he's
07:07 realised it probably was a bad policy but I think he's entrapped by his own, if I
07:11 may say so, his own ego, he doesn't want to be seen to lose face, I think he's
07:15 pressed ahead with it and it is a nonsense and I think Keir Starmer's got a
07:18 role in this as well. If it's not something Labour Party support, Keir
07:22 Starmer should have said to Sadiq Khan instead of saying oh I do like it, I don't
07:26 like it, I do like it, I don't like it, he should have said to Sadiq Khan this is not
07:29 a Labour policy, please don't do it. I mean he kind of almost said that didn't he?
07:35 After the legal challenge which we might come back to in a second, which failed,
07:40 so Keir Starmer said it needs to be reviewed and he said particularly there
07:44 needs to be look at the scrappage support around the fringes and the Mayor
07:49 of London just ignored it. There was additional money added into the scrappage
07:53 scheme I believe. For London. Well yeah this is it isn't it? For us. But you've got to think of the
07:59 whole surrounding areas around London and that's where national taxation
08:05 takes in place. We've got Birmingham, we've got Bristol which again are funded by the
08:09 government. So what makes Kent residents less worthy than Bristol residents to
08:15 get access to that scrappage scheme? Well if I may, look we've got nine out of ten
08:19 vehicles currently compliant. Sadiq Khan has said himself within four years his
08:24 income will disappear from this tax. So he knows we're heading inexorably
08:29 towards full compliance. Why not allow that just to happen? He can't have it
08:34 both ways. He can't say it's not going to affect many vehicles but on the other
08:38 hand say it's going to have a major impact on air quality. He knows this is
08:41 an absolute ridiculous policy. It's all about the money and even at this late
08:45 stage I hope he'll think again. But honestly I mean Keir Starmer could have
08:50 stopped this. I think the legal challenge was good, I think they tried. But once
08:53 you've given powers to the mayor, one of the lessons we've learned is perhaps
08:56 there should have been some residual powers in the legislation that says if a
09:00 mayor goes AWOL and you really have something that's unpopular, perhaps there's
09:03 some mechanism for stopping it. Neither Dartford Council nor Kent County Council
09:07 joined that legal challenge. Do you regret that now? Well we couldn't, we're
09:09 not party to it. So there's simply no legal... we'd be offering support to our
09:13 closest neighbours Bexley who could, but we're not legally enabled to because
09:17 we're not party to the decisions that Sadiq Khan was making. So we've been
09:22 offering support and help. As you know KCC have blocked the idea of putting
09:26 signage in their area, which I fully support. So we've been doing what we can,
09:30 but it's just a dreadful policy really and it's so cruel and it's hitting all
09:33 the wrong people. And even at this late stage I still hope he'll think again
09:38 and make a good decision. So absolutely, there's an element here that you know in
09:43 that letter from Grant Shapps that appeared after the Uxbridge elections
09:47 all that sort of stuff, which was a directive into you must accelerate the
09:51 you know the new ULEZ, there is an element there that actually the
09:55 government is behind this completely. I'm really sorry but it's not. I mean if you...
10:00 But it is! The letter is there. Forgive me Rob, but the letter was a response to the bid from TFL for
10:06 extra money saying here's why we need the money, here's where our contribution
10:11 is going to come from, here's where your contribution is going to come from. In
10:14 that... The expectation. The government said very clearly and quite rightly if you want
10:20 X hundreds of millions of pounds from us we would expect you to do the things
10:24 that you have promised to do including ULEZ. Otherwise there's a further
10:28 funding gap. Now that's what that letter was about. It was accepting the fact that
10:32 Sadiq Khan wanted to pursue this. Now when you've got a mayor who says I want
10:36 to do this you can't blame the government for saying okay well if you
10:39 say you want to do this we've got to put that into the equation. That's what the
10:42 letter was about. Honestly there was no... Boris Johnson could have done this in 15.
10:46 He decided not to for precisely the reasons you said. There is not the
10:50 infrastructure locally. And he would have done it in 15 if it had been the right
10:54 thing to do. It was wrong then and it's wrong now Rob. Lauren just very very
10:58 quickly as we come towards the break. This has effectively turned the right to
11:01 pollute into a luxury item that can be afforded by the rich and it's a Labour
11:04 politician that's done it. Do you feel uncomfortable about that? I don't support
11:09 that. I think there are other ways in which you could have done but again this
11:14 is a Labour politician that's been elected by the people of London. I would
11:19 have had a different approach. You know looking at the size of
11:22 engines for instance. Because you see you know even in central London there are
11:27 you know great big engines that are ULES compliant but actually great a lot of...
11:33 Okay it's time for a short break. When we come back we'll ask whether politicians
11:37 are losing their nerve on the environment and will a new building
11:40 policy been good news for first-time buyers or bad news for Kent's rivers.
11:45 Stay with us.
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15:02 welcome back to the chem politics show live on km TV
15:09 next tonight
15:10 our politicians going cool on global warming
15:13 with a general election looming party leaders are nervous about upsetting voters in key swing seats like dartford gravesham and the medway towns
15:21 both rishi sunak and sakir starmer are desperate not to be branded anti car
15:26 and even the new cabinet minister for net zero is against the uless expansion
15:30 we're still here with me is labors lauren sullivan leader of the opposition at kent county council and conservative jeremy kite leader of dartford borough council
15:39 welcome back
15:40 lauren
15:41 isn't net zero becoming a dirty word do you think in politics now
15:45 gosh i hope not
15:46 our future you know our children's futures lives depend on it and you're given the rain and the weather that we've had over recent years i mean it's incredibly important
15:55 i think what you were just saying there about being anti car
15:59 car seems to be the only option available for a lot of people the are you know areva buses that we have in our area
16:05 have been cut kent county council have sadly due to the finances have had to cut a load of bus services so actually what is the alternative
16:16 when you look at trains again
16:18 pricey incredibly expensive so actually the cheapest option is car we need to change that
16:24 what is good though is the amount of electric charging points going in but again you're looking at the cost of an electric car which is over thirty grand so
16:32 it needs to be affordable we need to take people with us on that journey to net zero
16:38 we've had a summer where the conservative party took quite a boost from the uxbridge by election and then started to think that that was a sign that environmental policies switched off voters
16:47 rishi sunak has become a little bit hot and cold on whether or not he would go ahead with phasing out fuel cars and diesel cars
16:56 there's a bit of hesitancy do you think
16:59 no i actually think it's a rebalancing towards common sense and like lauren there's no alternative to net zero i mean it has to be done it's something we all sign up for and want
17:09 but what happened is it became taken over i think by the extreme of either side really the argument so you get extinction rebellion you get demonstrations you get sadiq khan associating it with tax and money negative
17:21 environmental improvements need to be positive and i think we're seeing a sort of sensible rebalancing now where there's an understanding that yes we've got to get there
17:30 but we've also got to deliver homes we've also got to deliver transport we've also got to have an effective economy because that's what fuels a lot of this
17:37 what we've got to do is make the changes and then really embark ourselves on towards net zero
17:43 but i think the intolerance of the debate has been really negative and really held people back
17:48 and talking to residents during the local elections i think what they wanted to see was a whole series of common sense environmental policies that they could really understand buying to adapt their behaviour
17:59 and i think that's where we are and if we get to 2030 and we've got two more years or four more years in the great scheme of things i think humankind has done rather well
18:07 so i think it's not a race to the figure it's a race to the change and i think as long as people's behaviours change we've done the right thing
18:14 how do you think people tend to be in favour of environmental policy until it hits them in the pocket i mean that's really the lesson of the uless thing isn't it
18:23 how do politicians change their approach to try and bring people with them on these difficult changes some of this is going to be painful isn't it
18:30 so that's a very good point so you have to take people with you and i think any time that there has been action done for instance i'm thinking of the active travel thing in kent where roads were blocked off
18:43 with no consultation and there was a huge backlash against it we as politicians have to set out that journey so that it is painless as possible but it needs that vision and it needs leaders bold enough to take on that vision
18:58 in a way that we take people with us so that people aren't out of pocket but that requires a whole series of investment it needs insulating our homes which i think was scrapped under the conservative government
19:10 that was already planned all these sorts of things need to be rolled out so it actually provides jobs but also there's a huge great big green economy revolution just waiting to happen
19:21 very quickly what about how do we get to 90% of compliant vehicles without some policy no one gives us any credit for that we're now talking about the argument over uless we're talking about things that are controversial
19:35 getting to 90% compliance has been done quietly quiet revolution people are supportive people love the vehicles they love the change that's what we've got to do and things like insulation are still going on
19:47 we don't need to talk about cancelling it it's a change of the way we're doing it change of technologies Darfur council is massively ahead of its insulation programs we don't need demonstrators to tell us about it
19:57 so I think we are getting there we've just got to be practical I think and if it's practical people will believe in it
20:02 let's move on because you talked about rebalancing and one of the ways that's happening is with regulations designed to protect rivers and streams from being polluted by new housing developments and those regulations are set to be lifted by the government
20:13 house builders have welcomed the move which would kick start construction in areas like Stodmarsh and the River Stour in Kent we spoke to our councillor Alan Baldock the Labour leader of Canterbury City Council and the Kent Wildlife Trust about what this means for that area
20:26 it's a fairly large area that the Stour catchment covers but of course we're only talking about one catchment within Kent we're not even talking about all catchments in Kent we're not talking about all rivers in Kent so it's just literally the legislation designed to protect sites such as this
20:41 in some of the water bodies on this nature reserve the water quality is already poor so that's only going to get worse it's not going to improve if we're not mitigating for excess nutrients coming into the water
20:55 but we don't want to start building absolutely loads of housing which seems to be the view that they want to do until we've started at least to start building this mitigation in place which can take several years to actually establish
21:08 if we keep doing that we're just going to destroy our environment even more this mitigation should have been built years ago and it's dither and delay for 10 plus years
21:19 Jeremy listening there to a couple of different views about this we've also spoken this week to other Conservative council leaders around Kent who said that their main priority is to unlock housing they want affordable housing for people how do we make that choice between housing and between pollution and the cleanliness of our rivers
21:37 well first of all it's not my main policy to unlock housing I mean what we need is the right amount of housing I think the housing targets are not the right way to proceed I think housing should be spread across the country evenly so it's not my priority to unlock housing it's my priority to put it where we need it
21:52 but coming to your main point I hate it when people who aren't scientists start talking about science you're a scientist you can get away with it but I don't know about the science all I know is that the amounts of change from this policy in environmental terms is actually quite small and the big dis-improvement here comes from agricultural waste and silage seepage so that's the bit that I think the government are going to try and address
22:17 by the sounds of it this seems like a sensible and moderate policy change provided they put the money in to mitigate and I think that's about to happen so as long as the balance is there again but don't run away with the idea that we're all interested in loads of housing we're not some of us have to take it because that's what the numbers say but many of us are concerned about the volumes of housing
22:37 Last couple of years big concerns about the quality of our waterways around Kent there's been obviously a lot of concern about sewage on the north Kent coast lots of concern about pollution in our rivers would it be difficult for people to sell this as a good idea even if it's only a small amount of additional pollution in our waterways?
22:55 Well they need to stop polluting the waterways first so let's get rid of the sewage out of our waterways let's do that let's hold the water companies to account in that way of course but I have to agree with you Jeremy crikey what's happening?
23:12 That's because you're a scientist you spot common sense
23:15 Well I don't know about that sometimes you speak common sense but no it's about getting the right mix of housing and about local need and development there is an issue certainly in the brownfield sites that we want to develop that aren't able to come forward because of the additional costs they then get bounced on through different developers which isn't meeting the needs of our towns that we need so we need to have that sensible conversation about actually the needs of the local area not housing targets
23:44 And Kent we have quite a few councils who are behind out of date local plans what we're talking about here is a change of regulation which will mean Natural England don't have to raise an objection about plans that might involve pollution of rivers which means it's a little bit harder potentially for councils to stave off a development now Alan Baldock there from Canterbury saying we can still say no but of course it can go to an inquiry and if Natural England aren't saying well this is dangerous
24:13 Might they just get pushed through anyway?
24:16 Well the truth is it is either dangerous or it isn't dangerous and I don't think the policy is talking about things that are dangerous I think it's talking about a marginal change so I think the inflammatory part of that question isn't really appropriate if it's dangerous it won't happen but I do think what you've got here is a mitigation system now where money's been put in that says look actually if 90% of this problem is being caused by something else let's put the money in to deal with that it buys us a little bit of headroom to build some houses that people do need and we need to get them built
24:44 I think you're partly in mind we're both committed to 300,000 houses a year or something because that's what's needed now I believe they should be spread further across the country and not just in the wealthy south east but the fact is we need the houses and you've got to build them so I think this is probably a sensible plan I don't think it's about dangerous pollution and I don't think the issue with sewage is a really tough one isn't it it's been building building building for years it's going to take a huge amount of time to build it and I think it's a really tough one
25:11 isn't it it's been building building building for years it's going to take a huge amount of public effort and money to put that right and hopefully we can get there
25:19 I mean he says a huge amount of effort to put that right who should be making that effort?
25:23 Well you know naturally you say well all that dividends and profit that's been squirreled away elsewhere out the country that needs to be what was required for putting it right so actually
25:33 Well that's the first 2% of it so what are you going to do with the rest of it?
25:36 It needs to be directed to where it needs
25:38 No but that's the money where's the money going to come from what you talked about there about money being spirited away between 2 and 5% of the total bill to put right the sewage
25:45 Well the longer that it takes for things to be upgraded the more costly it's going to be so we've got a long term knock on effect there you look at our Kent Highways road network that's the same thing it's been run down run down run down costs more to do it it's about the preventative nature
26:00 You look at our local sewage works in Northleet which again has got new homes attached to it for EDC where's that been upgraded that's what we were promised it's about infrastructure first and investment into the services but from the existing residents not only the new residents coming in where's that coming from?
26:17 We're waiting on other monies coming in from here there we need it dealt with we need it sorted
26:22 I don't disagree with you but was it a priority for Blair and Brown to put it right start putting it right? I don't think it was I mean I think this has been building over 20-30 years
26:29 We need to end there sadly but that's all we've got time for at the Kent Politics Show thanks to both of my guests for coming in tonight we'll be back next week but stay with us because Kentonite is coming up after the break with all the latest news from around the county have a good evening good night
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