What will SDC’s legacy be?

Now it’s confirmed Sevenoaks District Council is winding up in May 2028, council leaders and officers should be thinking about its legacy.

For Sevenoaks town it’s a disaster, with much of our community’s future literally given away. Here are the four worst examples.

For 800 years our market has been owned and managed here in Sevenoaks, first by the owners of Knole, then after 1925 by Sevenoaks Urban District Council who bought it from Lord Sackville. Now Sevenoaks District Council is determined to give it away to the West Kent Unitary Council based in Maidstone. Why the leaders of SDC think that a big unitary council will care about six market stalls in Sevenoaks is a mystery!

In 1912 local people bought Hollybush Rec as a new recreation ground for the town. SDC intends to give this away too, despite a well thought out bid from Sevenoaks Town Council to make new investment the park needs and provide a dedicated park manager.

Stag Theatre’s success has been built on hard work of hundreds of Sevenoaks volunteers, and crowdfunding by local residents. It is a non-for-profit charity which has attracted grants to allow over £1.5 million investment since 2010. SDC wants to give away the freehold of the theatre unless people in Sevenoaks cough up £650,000 - to be given away to the Unitary Authority.

SDC’s Buckhurst Lane development, building 250 flats on the site of Sevenoaks Leisure Centre and on the 300 plus car park spaces around it was supposed to pay for a new Leisure Centre half the size of the one completed in 2002.

The latest Buckhurst plan is very different from the one which local people saw two years ago; no bus station, no hotel, no lifts for the multi-storey to allow it to work as a shoppers car park, and no arts and culture centre in the High Street. The plan - much of it still secret - involves giving away most of the public land between Suffolk Way and Knole Park, lending the developer over £10 million to make it happen, and leaving Sevenoaks without a Leisure Centre for a year. SDC’s leaders have placed most future decisions in the hands of Council officers, some of who have left.

Each of these plans gives away assets essential for the economy, culture and future success of Sevenoaks. They repeat the errors of 1974, when Sevenoaks Urban District Council gave away most of its assets to the new District Council. These are political mistakes which will not be forgotten - or forgiven.

Tony Clayton.

Town & District Councillor, Sevenoaks.