Sevenoaks Weald Parish
Welcome to the website of Sevenoaks Weald, a village of about 1,200 people in the Green Belt and Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty just south of Sevenoaks, Kent. The site is operated by the village’s Parish Council. By browsing this site you can discover local amenities and services as well as gain an introduction to the variety of organisations, from sports to horticulture, that make the village such a vibrant community.
Latest News....
Annual Parish Council Meeting- 4th August 2021 at 7.30 pm in the Memorial Hall.
Agenda to follow
Traffic consultation documentation about the reduction of speed limits within the village
Bus update
Kent County Council has launched a public consultation on what the community wants from bus travel. This is in response to the National Bus Strategy published by the Government in March of this year, which sets out a framework for recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and a vision for future bus service improvements across the UK.
The strategy requires all Local Transport Authorities and Bus Operators to create a Bus Service Improvement Plan, which will act as the vision for how the council will try to improve bus services in Kent in the next few years. This will then be used to help create Enhanced Partnership Schemes with bus operators, which will set the standards for all bus services running in the county.
The first version of the Improvement Plan must be published by the end of October and the Enhanced Partnership Schemes need to start from April 2022.
The council says it is excited about the opportunity provided by the initiative and wants to ensure that the Improvement Plan reflects the views of Kent residents. It therefore wants to hear from users and residents about what would make bus travel more attractive. It is also keen to engage in this way as the plan is formed. But at the start it is inviting the public to visit the website and answer a short questionnaire to identify what the Improvement Plan should focus on.
The consultation is available at https://letstalk.kent.gov.uk/busfuture.
Fly Tipping
Weald Parish Council and Sevenoaks Council take fly tipping very seriously.We are one of the only councils with a dedicated portal to report it. You can report any flytipping by clicking here. It is helpful if you take a photograph of the flytipping and use what3words app to report the location
Village Design Statement Update
The group that has been working on a revised Village Design Statement has decided that as a result of the rejection by the Planning Inspectorate of Sevenoaks District Council’s local plan along with the disruption caused by the pandemic it cannot press ahead with the project. The group had been much encouraged by the response of the Weald community to the work, which aimed to produce a document that would have to be taken into account by the district council when making planning decisions. However, it was felt that the delay caused by the pandemic meant that the results of the questionnaire completed by residents were now open to question.
District Councillor Julia Thornton told the June Parish Council meeting that Weald was not alone in having its work halted by the pandemic and the council’s ongoing dispute with national authorities over its commitment to future housing. She said that the council was working hard to produce a new plan and that efforts were being made to help the parishes concerned progress with their village design statements.
However, because various members of the original working group have decided to pull out, any future efforts will require a new team. The Parish Council will make announcements regarding this in due course.