February 12: Brains behind BoJo's airport to be quizzed but not in Kent
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IT seems
councillors are finally going to get the chance to find out a
little bit more about Mayor of London Boris Johnson’s plans for an
island airport.
After
we reported how "BoJo" had repeatedly snubbed requests to come
to Kent to talk about his plan with the great and the good, the
door has been opened.
The only trouble is that the
councillors getting the opportunity to ask a few questions are
members of the Greater London Assembly and it
won’t be BoJO answering.
Instead Doug
Oakervee, the top civil engineer given the job by Boris of
coming up with a feasibility study, is to appear before the London
Assembly’s cross-party environment committee in March.
Still, although Kent councillors
are still being snubbed at least someone is going to have the
chance to elicit a bit more information – even if they’re from
London.
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It looks like
council taxpayers will, after all, be bearing the brunt of a
stand-off between KCC and the Home Office over a clash about unpaid
grant money to meet the costs of looking after asylum
seekers.
Despite efforts to negotiate a
settlement that would have seen KCC get a full return of the
full £4million, it seems the Home Office has only
offered 25 per cent - £1million.
As a result, council tax bills
are set to rise by 2.39 per cent instead of the
1.86 per cent the council would have
preferred.
There seems to be another sting
in the tale as a report setting out the plans, due to be voted on
at next week’s budget-setting meeting, says the Government has only
offered enough to cover a future shortfall, not the historic amount
of £7.3million.
It says the county council has
rejected the current offer on the table and negotiations are
continuing.
If there’s no successful
outcome, the average Band D tax for the KCC share will rise to
£1,050.84
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I HAVEN’T heard how a recent
visit to Sweden by a small group of Kent education chiefs and
headteachers went.
The party went to look at some
free schools, a concept the Conservatives are rather keen
on.
But by coincidence, there was an
interesting piece on "Newsnight" examining the pros and cons of the
free school system that the Conservative party nationally is rather
keen on.
You
can see the report here>>>
One of the most interesting
revelations was that the Swedish authorities are now re-examining
the whole policy, after research pointed to a decline in standards
nationally since free schools were first introduced.
Friday, February 12 2010
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