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Wednesday January 30 | 2019
PHOTO: Rose Bainbridge
Seven-month delay before plastic and glass collections
SURGICAL STRIKE: The old Teen and Twenty Club on River Lawn Road is demolished to make way for the new Medical Centre
Village green status will save River Lawn from developers By Andy Tong andy@timesoftonbridge.co.uk THE Barden Residents’ Association has succeeded in its bid to have River Lawn considered for village green status after the council trying to block the move. Campaigners are hailing the news as a ‘stepping stone’ towards stopping any development from being permitted on the town centre green space. A public consultation runs until March 16, after which Kent County Council [KCC] will make a decision. Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council’s [TMBC] Cabinet voted to sell River Lawn for residential housing in 2017. The decision came after a hard-fought campaign by the protest group Keep River Lawn Green [KRLG] to preserve the half-acre plot for public use.
Now County Hall has accepted the application to register the land as a village green despite the borough council attempting to stop the move on the grounds that the site was affected by ‘development proposals’.
‘It’s very good news to get past this first hurdle. The council are hamstrung’ KRLG’s chair, Mark Hood, said: “It’s very good news to get past this first hurdle. The council are hamstrung, they cannot develop the land or sell it if it’s a village green. “If the area is in a development plan, it doesn’t qualify. So you have to get the application in beforehand, which we did. “We’ve been talking to the Open Spaces
THE contractor appointed to carry out the new refuse collection service across Tonbridge and Malling will not start to deliver the changes for seven months. Urbaser, who take over the operation from March 1, will pick up roadside glass and plastics in Tonbridge for the first time. But this fortnightly collection will come into force on September 30. The introduction of an opt-in garden waste collection will also be delayed. This will cost subscribers £35 a year, rising to £40 when the discount period expires. The reason for the wait is that it will take time for the logistics of the new arrangements to be finalised.
Experience
Society and the Campaign to Protect Rural England, and our solicitor told us to get the application in straightaway.” He explained: “This is part of the problem that the council have got, because they are selling off River Lawn – and a property on River Walk – without planning permission so they aren’t getting the full value of the land from the sale. They’ve shot themselves in the foot.” Sites can be put up for the application ‘by virtue of the use of the land for the purposes of lawful sports and pastimes as of right and without challenge by the landowner for a period of over 20 years’. The Residents’ Association says the First Tonbridge Scouts Group, based at Lamberts Yard, have been using River Lawn at least since the 1920s, playing games and practising putting up tents.
This includes the provision of new trucks and bins, while giving residents an opportunity to sign up for the green waste option. The ‘greatly improved’ recycling contract will also feature a weekly food waste service and kerbsides collection of textiles, small electrical items and batteries. Robert Styles, Director of Street Scene, Leisure and Technical Services at Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council, said: “Experience shows that introducing major changes at the start of a new contract to such a large number of residents can lead to operational problems.” He added: “The contract includes a programmed period of time to provide an ‘as is’ service to enable all the changes to be properly managed.” The joint initiative with Tunbridge Wells Borough Council will serve 101,000 homes.
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