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By Richard Williams TUNBRIDGE Wells will mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee this week with a street party for every year Her Majesty has been on the throne. According to Kent County Council, which has issued licences for residents to hold parties in roads, streets and cul-de-sacs in the county, there have been exactly 70 applications from people in Royal Tunbridge Wells and the surrounding borough. Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1952, 70 years ago from tomorrow (Thursday, June 2). Across the county of Kent, 550 community celebrations will be taking part from Thursday, when the country is given an extra bank holiday to mark the anniversary of the Queen’s coronation.
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FLAG BEARERS: Young supporters at the Pickering Cancer Drop in Centre In Monson Rd prepare to party
COUNCILLORS at Tunbridge Wells Borough Council (TWBC) have voted in the head of the Liberal Democrats group as the authority’s new Council Leader, ending two decades of Conservative rule. At Wednesday’s Full Council meeting (May 25), the first since the May 5 elections - which saw the Lib Dem group overtake the Tories as the largest party at TWBC - Cllr Ben Chapelard was voted in as the new Leader of the Council. Cllr Chapelard, who works as a language teacher at a secondary school in Kent, was backed by all 13 members of his own party as well as those from the Tunbridge Wells Alliance (TWA), which
has nine councillors, and the Labour group, which has seven. The three parties have agreed a coalition deal to control the authority. It will see members of the Council’s cabinet – the decision-making committee at the authority – shared among the three parties.
Control Under Cllr Chapelard there will be three other Lib Dem members of the cabinet along with two members of the TWA and two members of the Labour Group. Lib Dem Andy Hickey made the nomination, addressing thanks to former leader Tom Dawlings. Seconding the nomination was Cllr
Nancy Warne (TWA), who is also deputy leader. She said that despite leaving the Lib Dem party, she had ‘watched Ben’s persistence and tenacity in his representation of his residence on this council, and building support for his party to the current success they have today. “And we find that our paths come together again where they have now brought together councillors to form a new administration. Councillors who are willing to bridge across difference and, where necessary, make compromises, in order to focus on the job in hand, to try to deliver the best outcomes for our communities across the whole borough,
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Royal town gets set to celebrate Queen’s historic Platinum Jubilee
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Wednesday June 1 | 2022