Blinkered vision or a real way forward?

We applaud their ideals but have some reservations about not only the ability to realise and deliver this vision, but on precisely what that vision is.

The £26 million funding that has already been secured is approximately allocated as follows: -

We could not obtain details of the allocation for the Education Initiatives and Environment Programme so the after totalling the other items the balance was simply allocated between them.

Whilst many of the above initiatives will effect all of our daily lives, a number of them have direct consequences for our village and the surrounding areas.

Northern Relief Road (£10.4 million)

This is by far the largest of the schemes and although construction has started on the first section a further two sections currently do not have any funding.

The Milton creek crossing requires a further investment of £42 million, which has been applied for but not granted at the time of writing. However no funding currently existing for the final leg from the East Hall Farm development to Bapchild.

This is of great importance as without this final link, we not only end up with a road to nowhere, but we also face the prospect of a Southern Relief Road joining the A2 with major implications for traffic congestion within Sittingbourne as a whole.

Southern Relief Road Study (0.3 Million)

The study which came out very shortly before the Examination In Public provided some very interesting results, and while concluding that it was technically feasible, questioned the ability to meet the modal shift away from the car which forms the basis of the whole study.

It concluded that these targets were “very optimistic and whilst not unachievable nothing of this scale has ever been achieved before”

It also concluded that without the completion of the Northern Relief Road it would result in adding to the traffic problems we already have.

Swale Forward have provided the following dates as part of the critical path for the Southern Relief Road, although its only ever been considered as part of expansion plans for the Kent Science Park and not as a scheme in its own right.

Oh it might also be of interest to learn that the Kent Science Park contributed £100,000 towards the cost of this study.

Develop proposal  - Summer 04-05
Planning Application  -  Autumn 05
Start Construction  - Summer 08

Education Initiatives (£1.2 million for the whole of North Kent)

Their website suggests that “a highly skilled workforce is crucial to the long-term success of Swale's economy.” yet the allocation of funding for the whole of North Kent only just exceeds the running costs of the Swale Forward Initiative itself.

Whilst I would commend any effort to improve education standards within the borough this initiative is severely lacking in funding and unlikely to produce any great degree of improvement. In fact I fear that whatever allocation there is, it will be spent on some study or strategy and bring no immediate benefits to the borough.

Kent Science Park (1 Million)

The sales pitch commences with:

“This project aims to help expand the Centre to create a science park of national significance, capable of attracting up to 5,000 jobs in high-value growth sectors”.

The above allocation is purely for the development of six state-of-the-art self-contained laboratory units that are both chemistry and biology compatible. One assumes that this could therefore only accommodate a further six companies on site, hardly the kind of numbers needed to generate 5,000 new jobs.

The banter continues with:

 “Kent Science Park employs 2,000 people in the knowledge-intensive companies”

I’d like to thinks that it’s a simple typing error, that is until you consistently see it repeated in various documents and also on their website. This sentence is quite simply a work of fiction, even the Kent Science Park website and other literature only claims to have 1,000 people on site and not all in knowledge-intensive companies.

So, precisely, what is the remit of Swale Forward with regard to the Kent Science Park? It obviously encompasses far more than the Bio-Accelerator project and a feasibility study of the Southern Relief Road.

I find it fascinating that Swale Forwards’ vision of 5,000 new jobs is by shear coincidence exactly the same as that of the Kent Science Park, which fits in very nicely with a large scale expansion well beyond anything that could be achieved within the confines of the existing security fence as upheld by Swale Councils own Local Plan Panel only last month.

Unfortunately of the five members of the Swale Implementation Board that I met in early September, not one was able to comment on just how this might be achieved, suggesting we were moving into planning territory, which they could not discuss without their planners being present.

The question one might ask is that if Swale Forward have seen fit to vastly inflate the numbers of the current workforce at the KSP and have a vision of huge numbers of new jobs without a vehicle to deliver it, how reliable is the remainder of their information and how comfortable do you feel leaving our future in their hands.