Stuart Jeffery has been leader of Maidstone Borough Council for a year. The Green Party representative chats to Alan Smith about his first 12 months in office.

Stuart Jeffery had been a familiar figure in local politics for years before he ever got elected.

If you add up all the times he stood for election, either as a Green Party candidate for the borough or county councils, or in general elections, voters rejected him on 25 occasions.

On his 26th election, in 2022, they said yes, and he became the first ever Green councillor at Maidstone Borough Council, representing Bridge Ward.

After that break-through, his rise was meteoric and at the next election, just two years later, not only was he re-elected in an expanded ward with an even bigger percentage of the vote, but also his group - the Green and Independent Alliance (GAIA) became the largest on the council and he was voted in as leader.

He presides over a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, who came in third after the Conservatives, and between them, they hold 26 of the 49 seats.

Cllr Jeffery said: “It wasn’t an accident that we came out on top. We did kind of have a strategy.

“We had a bit of a discussion beforehand with other opposition parties and the independents, making sure we didn’t tread on each other’s toes too much. We could see an opportunity.

“The plan was very clear - to field enough people in winnable seats to get over the line.

“It worked out fairly even between us and the Conservatives, but we had one more seat.”

Although he had been hoping for success, Cllr Jeffery admitted some surprise on actually finding himself leader.

He said: “It was a feeling of astonishment, really, given the speed of our rise.

“I had resigned from my job with the NHS by that point, so I had more time to campaign, plus there was a national swing to the Greens and a significant collapse in the Conservative vote. There were a number of factors.”

Cllr Jeffery said that he was enjoying his new role.

“It’s the best job I’ve ever done by a country mile,” he said.

“Just being a councillor is brilliant; you get to speak your mind and get to help people. Being leader just adds to that.

“Of course, I have to speak now on behalf of the council, as well as my party, my residents and myself. I have this multi-headed thing going on. Sometimes I have to be a little careful, and make sure I’m not saying the wrong thing with the wrong hat on, but the ability to speak out on an issue is really good.”

Now his life involves meetings with council officers and with other group leaders as well as dealing with problems experienced by his voters - what he calls his casework.

He said: “We have a meeting with the comms [communications] team each morning. They tell us what they are about to put out. It’s just a heads-up so that we know what to expect.”

Once a week, he and his cabinet members have a briefing with the council’s four senior officers - Alison Broom, the chief executive; William Cornall, the director of regeneration; Angela Woodhouse, the director of strategy, and Mark Green, the director of finance - in what some backbench councillors jokingly call the “shadow cabinet.”

He said: “It’s necessary. You can’t throw ideas around in the same way at a formal cabinet meeting.

“There’s debate; sometimes there’s dissent.”

How easy is it to get the officers to adopt your plans?

“It depends on the plan.

“If the officers like it, it’s simple. If they don’t like it, they push back.

“Sometimes they say, ‘That’s a good idea, but you could actually go much further.’”

Do they ever actually say no to what you want to do?

“They don’t have any powers. There is nothing they can absolutely say no to - unless it’s illegal. But there is soft power.”

“For example, I wanted to get a Park and Ride going again at the DFS site on London Road.

“The officers looked at it and came back and said it was far too expensive; there was no way we could afford the subsidy.

“Now we could do it. We could make that our number one priority. But if they sit there and say this is not a goer, look at the costs. That is giving some strong push-back - probably rightfully so in that case.”

And the other way around?

“Well, the officers wanted to put a padel tennis court in Coronation Square [behind Lockmeadow] - they had been approached by a private company.”

“We didn’t want that. They are looking at somewhere else in the borough now.”

What is the relationship like with your fellow cabinet members?

“We meet once a month to see how they are getting on with their portfolios and to make sure we are all on the same page.

“So we have some good debates, sometimes I even lose those debates and I’m outvoted. I don’t mind that. It shows I’m pushing them hard.”

Once a month doesn’t sound very often.

“They know what to do and I trust them to get on with it.”

Is it difficult being in an alliance with another party - the Lib Dems?

“Not at all. We have a good partnership.

“During elections, sometimes the Lib Dems are my opponents, but they’re not my enemies.

“For example, I just stood in the County Council election against Chris Passmore [a Lib Dem], whom I consider to be a good friend - he’s not my enemy.”

“The other Lib Dem candidate was Tony Harwood - we’ve known each other for years.

“It works because right at the beginning, we agreed a programme that both sides wanted to do.

“We just stay focused on delivering that programme, so the politics become rather irrelevant, we just get on with the work we’ve got to do.”

So the Lib Dems haven’t twisted your arm to do something you didn’t want to do?

“The only disagreement I can think of was over the size of the planning committee. I wanted to reduce it to nine and they were adamant they wanted to keep it at 13.”

Why reduce it?

“The planning committee has the greatest amount of work of any committee, the heaviest reading, the most research.

“It’s also the most contentious. Whatever decision you make, you will upset somebody.

“I thought that having 13 people was just unnecessarily increasing the overall workload - nine would have been better, more efficient, and perhaps you would get nine slightly more expert people.

“The Lib Dems said no and I accepted that. It’s not the end of the world.

What takes up the rest of your time?

“Well, there are usually two or three evening meetings each week. During the day, I’m meeting staff or various members of my team .

“Then there’s my casework - I’ve just been out looking at the roadworks in Hartnup Street for example, and talking to residents there.

“Then there‘s meeting businesses - and chatting with journalists!”

What are relationships like with the Conservatives, who ran the council before you?

“They are doing a reasonable job in opposition. Their role is to challenge us and they do. “Sometimes the challenges get a little bit personal, I feel.”

“When I speak my mind, I get berated, particularly by Cllr Tom Cannon. But that’s their job.

“The good thing about Maidstone Borough Council is that we are all there for Maidstone. We all recognise that.

“The Conservatives recognise that it’s our turn to be in power and their role has changed. I can pick up the phone to them and have conversations at any time, and I do.

“All the party group leaders meet once a fortnight anyway, just for a briefing.

“That was the same process when the Conservatives were in power.”

You talked of having a programme of work, what are your objectives?

“We set those out in a paper to full council last year. We had 30 key actions.

“Actually, we have just reviewed those because we wanted to prioritise them in the light of the imminent local government reorganisation.

“So there is the local governance review that we have already started, looking to see if there is a need to create a town council or more parish councils to cover the parts of the borough that are not parished.

“Then we have plans to develop the town centre. We’ve started to deliver that with the new planters in the Jubilee Square. We’ve got more planters coming on at the other end of Week Street.

“We want to pedestrianise more of Earl Street - make it our Eat Street, for example.”

“We want to make sure we’ve got a plan for walking and cycling through the town. We threw out the KCC proposal for a walking and cycling strategy, it was rubbish.

“We’ve got a new strategy for climate control coming forward, and of course, we are going to have a citizens’ assembly about violence against women and girls.

“We’re pushing half a million into nature recovery programmes.

“And we want to identify a site and buy it for a publically owned Gypsy/Roma traveller site to reduce some of the pressure on Gypsy applicatons coming forward. And we want to really push the use of Jubilee Square and Coronation Square for community events.

“Finally, we want to continue with the target [set by former Conservative leader David Burton] of delivering 1,000 social housing units for the borough.”

And how’s that going?

“Work is beginning at Maidstone East where we will provide 180 units and a country park, and at Springfield, where there will be 120 units, both being delivered by the council

“Altogether, there are about 400 in the pipeline, plus we have already got around 100 properties for temporary accommodation. So we’re just shy of 500 - halfway.”

Probably the biggest single complaint about Maidstone from residents is traffic - particularly at the moment with the closure of the Loose Road and the chaos that is causing. Highways is a KCC responsibility, but is there anything the borough can do?

“Well, we are all aware of the car crash - that may be the wrong metaphor - that is the Joint Transportation Board [a combined meeting of county and borough councillors to discuss highways issues]. That has delivered absolutely nothing.

“Cllr Brian Clark has been all over the press with how KCC has taken £14m of our money that it hasn’t spent. There’s a real feeling that Maidstone has been ignored by KCC, and that hasn’t happened elsewhere.”

“In Tunbridge Wells, they’ve got ANPR cameras all over the place, controlling the traffic.

“In Tonbridge, they’ve got a 20mph speed limit over most of the town.

“In Maidstone, we can’t even get them to have a pedestrian crossing that changes when you press the button.

“The other day, I timed the one in Palace Avenue near the bottom of Gabriel’s Hill. It took four minutes for the traffic to stop after I pressed the button.

“It’s very clear that KCC has a car-first policy.”

We don’t have the time because of the local government reorganisation

“But with a town like Maidstone, with its narrow roads and no bypass, that is the wrong approach.

“I don’t want a gyratory, bypasses or circular routes - they just pour more cars onto the road.

“So what can we do? I had hoped to put some money in with KCC to create a decent transport plan, but that is going to take too long. We don’t have the time because of the local government reorganisation.

“So we’ll have to do things on a much smaller scale, as part of our vision for the town centre.

“We’ll pick up some of the issues, such as the lights in Palace Avenue and the lack of cycle lanes. But we only have influence, not control.”

So you are at the end of your first year as leader, have things gone as you expected?

“Well, we arrived in the middle of the Suez crisis [where the new waste contractors Suez, were failing to empty people’s rubbish bins].

“We struggled to sort out bins for a couple of months, but we sorted them out.

“We then went straight into a general election, which curtailed all our meetings, so we were a little hampered by that.

“Straight after the general election, there were noises around local government reorganisation.

“But we have written a new corporate strategy and agreed a new budget.”

“Of course, last year we were working to the budget that had been set previously by the Conservatives. But we delivered it, which I am very proud of.

“You often hear on the doorstep, particularly from Conservative supporters, ‘Well, you’re profligate, you’ll just spend all our money.

“Well, we delivered the budget.

“We also did things like the Covid Memorial. That for me was something I really wanted.

“And we have done things like reversing the council’s position on an extension of quarrying at Oaken Wood - which we did within days of taking power.”

“We’ve got a new policy on HMOs [Houses in Multiple Occupation] that hopefully will come into force within a month or two.”

But what things have actually been completed in that first year; what changes have voters seen?

“They will have seen some of the enhanced enforcement we are doing on fly-tipping and should be aware that we have been prosecuting people.

“People in Lenham will have seen that we are taking the environment seriously [around the delivery of the Heathlands garden village], but that’s another long-term project.

“They will have seen the improvement at Brenchley Gardens. A year ago, that was being talked of almost as if it were a no-go area.”

“Now, if you read the social media posts, everyone is saying what a lovely place it is to visit.

“People will also have seen the very tangible improvements at Jubilee Square. It was a grey, barren wasteland 12 months ago. Now we have plants growing out of the lamp posts and on the ground. There’s a fundamentally different feel to it.

“We‘ve started to change the culture of Maidstone. I want the town to be a welcoming, vibrant place.

“I’m not into economic growth for growth’s sake. I’m into making sure that people are proud of their town and it’s somewhere they like living.”

You were Maidstone’s first Green leader; you are also going to be its last leader because the whole council is being abolished in the local government reorganisation. How do you feel about that?

“A unitary authority will undoubtedly be better than having the current two-tier system.

“At the moment, residents don’t know which council they should be going to with their issues. Sometimes, we don’t even know.

“The opportunity to bring housing into consideration along with health and social care will be massive.

“Things will become much more cohesive but the politics will be difficult.”

“If Maidstone were to go into a unitary authority of West Kent with Sevenoaks, Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge and Malling - that would be 560,000 people. That’s huge.

“Even assuming there were 100 councillors, that would be 5,000 voters each. At MBC, we have about 3,300.

“But I am adamant they we need to be part of West Kent, because we need to align with the NHS health and social care partnership.

“Between 60 and 70% of KCC’s budget is spent on social care. If the new council is to have any chance of survival, it needs to integrate social care with the NHS.

“If instead we went in with Ashford and Swale, we would end up dealing with three different NHS health and social care partnerships. It would be unworkable.”

“There is a consensus among all the political parties at Maidstone that West Kent is the only way.

“One of the things we did was to commission some work from Price Waterhouse Coopers to give us a headline view on the different options and they came to the same conclusion and also said that three unitary authorities would be better than four.”

So what is the timetable for the changeover?

“We have to present a business case for our proposal to the government by November 28.

“We will have an extraordinary meeting in early November to make sure the council is happy with it.

“The government will then go out to public consultation on its proposals early in 2026 and we should get a decision late in 2026.

“We are expecting to get a Section 24 notice served on us sometime in the second half of next year.

“That’s the government basically saying we can’t make any further big decisions.

“So our ability to do anything will be seriously curtailed. We’ll be able to carry on emptying the bins and considering planning applications, but that’s about it.

“That’s why we’ve been looking again at our priorities, we need to get as much done before then as possible.”

Maidstone council will cease to exist in April 2028.

“We understand there will be an election for the new unitary authority in May 2027, and they will then have a shadow year to set themselves up before taking over.

“So Maidstone council will cease to exist in April 2028.”

Will you be standing for the new authority and how do you rate the Green Party’s chances?

“I will almost certainly be standing.

“The outcome is difficult to predict. West Kent has traditionally been strongly Conservative, but the Conservatives are collapsing - as we have seen just this week in Sevenoaks.

“We have a strong Green presence in Tonbridge - our candidate came third in the general election there.

“We have a footprint in Sevenoaks.

“The Lib Dems are strong in Tunbridge Wells where there’s also a strong independent group that we would be happy to work with.

“I’m sure there would be an opportunity for some sort of Green and Independent alliance.

“We might end up a junior party in an alliance, but between us and the Lib Dems, we’ve got a chance.”

“Of course, there’s Reform. The small silver lining of their huge success in the elections to KCC this month is that they now have a couple of years to show how bad they are.

“That was a one-off protest, I hope.”

So there’s no way you would ever form an alliance with Reform?

“No, I’d rather stick pins in my eyes.”

What seat would you stand for?

“We don’t yet know what the wards will be.

“We’re making a working assumption that the new authority will have to use the existing county council division boundaries because there is no time to do a boundary review.

“There are 27 KCC divisions in West Kent. If there were three councillors for each of the divisions, that would give 81 councillors.

“Some of those divisions, like Maidstone Central, return two councillors. Probably they would have to be divided into two, rather than have one ward returning six councillors.”

There was talk of a “democratic deficit” and the need to create a new town council before the borough was disbanded. How are you getting on with that?

“Now the KCC election is out the way, we will be restarting our community governance review.

“The majority of people in the borough are not represented by a parish council, which just doesn’t feel fair.

“Why should people in the town centre have less representation than in Coxheath, for example?

“We need to make it a level playing field.”

With a Section 24 order expected next year, are you going to have time?

“It is tight. The process will take about a year. We need to make sure it’s done and dusted before that letter comes in.

“But there are ways around it. If we get the consent of the other districts in the unitary authority, it could still happen.”

Would a town council work alongside the borough council, or only come into existence when the borough was disbanded?

“That’s to be discussed.”

But don’t you need to agree what is to be handed over to the Town Council? Do they get Mote Park?

“We’re having those discussions. Does it go to a town council or a trust? What we don’t want is for Maidstone’s key assets to end up with the new administration, where somebody decides they are going to sell them off.”

At the county council elections on May 1, Cllr Jeffery was elected to Maidstone Central Division by one vote over the Reform UK candidate Peter Jarvis.

He said: “Nobody was expecting Reform to do that well.

“I was elected by one vote and now, of course, every one I meet says it was my vote that got you in - and of course they are all right!

“The officers had done two partial recounts before asking the candidates what we wanted to do. There was the option of drawing lots from a hat.”

“But I asked for a full recount - the odds were still 50/50. I’ve rarely been more tense. Fortunately, they found one more vote for me.”

How are you going to manage being a KCC councillor at the same time as being leader of MBC?

“Because I’m in opposition on KCC the workload’s not that great.

“I used to attend several county meetings in my position as borough leader and I’ve been able to wangle it that I can now attend them as a KCC councillor.

“In some ways, it has made things easier. I used to be stopped by residents all the time anyway, with matters that actually came under KCC. Now I will be able to do something about them instead of passing stuff around.”

No doubt we will be phoning each other up to conspire against Reform!

“I don’t think it’s going to be a step change, but certainly the workload will get a little heavier.

“My team have been incredibly supportive, offering to help with my caseload.

“It will be interesting - Claudine Russell [the leader of the Maidstone Conservative Group] and I are now the only two-hatters left at Maidstone [both borough and county councillors]. She’s not a bad person.

“No doubt we will be phoning each other up to conspire against Reform!”

What does your wife think of your forever being at a council meeting somewhere?

“She’s happy and proud and incredibly supportive.

“The only difference it makes to us is that whenever we go out somewhere together, we have to go somewhere outside the borough.

“Otherwise, inevitably someone will come up and say: ‘Hello Stuart, how are you? By the way, about this pothole …”