Wednesday November 8 | 2017
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TURNING HEADS WITH THE NEW PORSCHE CAYENNE SUV Page 50
Police switch off speed cameras to save money BUDGET cuts imposed on Kent Police mean the force is using only one in four speed cameras across the county. Data released under a Freedom of Information request found that only 19 of the 77 cameras in Kent are active. A Kent police spokesman said: “It is all about resources and making the most of what we have got. “All of our camera locations may be operational at any time and it is the responsibility of all drivers to ensure they always adhere to speed limits.” Since 2010 nationally the police have seen a real-terms budget cut of 18 per cent with a decline of nearly 19,000 officers, according to Home Office data. In Kent there are 500 fewer officers than in 2010.
Effective Nick Lloyd, road safety manager for Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents [ROSPA], said he was not surprised by the figures. “The purpose is to slow motorists down and it should reduce the number of serious and fatal crashes. “I am not concerned about whether or not they are active. “What is more important is how they are performing, rather than to get too hung up on the number of cameras – it is about how effective they are.” “I think the cat is out of the bag now,” he said, adding that the new information might lead to some drivers taking a chance.
THE MAN WHO BUILT TONBRIDGE CELEBRATES 100TH BIRTHDAY Page 14
IT’S SO EASY TO MAKE JAPANESE FOOD AT HOME Page 46
LEST WE FORGET: YOUR GUIDE TO REMEMBRANCE SERVICES Page 5
Former Schools Minister was told INSIDE court would ban grammar annexe INTO THE TRENCHES Intriguing story of the woman behind poppy statues Page 2
MUSICAL MAESTRO
Trumpeter Matilda Lloyd wins international award Page 2
LIKING THE VIKING
One-man show tells tale of an unusual dying wish Page 60
DIGGING IN: Weald of Kent Grammar School’s annexe is officially opened in Sevenoaks with (l-r) Tonbridge & Malling MP Tom Tugendhat, Chair of Governors David Bower, Weald of Kent Headteacher Maureen Johnson, two of her mentor pupils, Kent County Council Leader Paul Carter and Sevenoaks MP Sir Michael Fallon – in his first official engagement since resigning from the Cabinet as Defence Secretary
By Andy Tong andy@timesoftonbridge.co.uk THE new Weald of Kent Grammar School annexe could have been judged illegal if it had been challenged through the courts, the Times can disclose. The £22million extension to the Tonbridge grammar was officially opened on Friday [November 3], although it has been up and running since September. David Laws, the Schools Minister for the coalition government, wrote in his diaries that the new selective option might not have been allowed to go ahead if it had been taken to a judicial review – when a
judge reviews the lawfulness of a decision made by a public body. Mr Laws claimed legal advisers had told the Department for Education that ‘by 70 per cent to 30 per cent’ the ‘balance of judg-
‘If the Tories go ahead we are going to have one hell of a public row’ David Laws, former Schools Minister
ment’ was that the proposed new grammar site in Sevenoaks, which is nine miles from its sister school in Tonbridge, would be considered ‘a new school’ rather than an
extension of an existing one and ‘therefore would be illegal’ – in other words, the government had only a 30 per cent chance of winning a judicial review. Mr Laws, who was the Lib Dem MP for Yeovil until the 2015 election, said in Coalition Diaries 2012 to 2015: “If the Tories try to go ahead and ignore the legal advice, then we are going to have one hell of a public row.” A campaign group called Comprehensive Future put forward the plan for a judicial review but had to abandon it because a request to see the legal advice given to the government was ‘not forthcoming and unaccountably delayed’.
Continued on page 2; Education, page 21
BACK WITH A BANG
TJs end their losing streak with seven stunning tries Page 62