Don't you just love a happy ending?

We've done it! At tonight's meeting of the Tunbridge Wells Joint Transportation Board, borough and county councillors agreed that Sandhurst Road in Sherwood should have a pedestrian crossing as soon as possible.

Residents present at the meeting - including campaigner Lynne Martindale, herself partially sighted and finding crossing Sandhurst Road particularly difficult - heard officers present a paper suggesting that several road improvements should be made to prevent speeding traffic and to improve road safety for local residents.

As the local County Councillor, I spoke about the residents of St Philip's Court who were marooned between Sandhurst Road and Liptraps Lane; of the pupils at Sherwood Park Primary School, one of whom had already been knocked down while trying to cross the road; and of so many local residents, including Lynne, who took their lives in their hands simply trying to get from one side of the road to the other.

Local development, in the form of the Barnardos development along Sandhurst Road, has provided much-needed funding by way of Section 106 funding. The sum, £25,000, will pay for a much-needed first pedestrian crossing, whilst studies are already being made into further improvements along this 'rat run' between Pembury Road and the industrial estate.

After the vote, local Borough Councillor Frank Williams and I met with several local residents outside the meeting, and the happines on their faces said it all. Very soon, residents young and old will be able to cross this busy road without worry.

Residents working alongside elected councillors and eventually winning. Don't you just love a happy ending?

A partnership win for Sherwood

This morning, I joined Greg Clark MP, local Borough Councillor Ted Jolley and several Sherwood residents at the TN2 Community Centre, to meet with Chief Executive of Arriva South East Heath Williams and General Manager Brian O'Kane.

The purpose of the meeting was to air and resolve some of the long-standing issues over bus services in and around the Sherwood area. Sunday buses, routing patterns, timetabling, accessibility - all were discussed this morning.

Residents' concerns were that bus services no longer ran to Knights Park; that available bus stops for some elderly residents were simply too far from where they lived; and that since local services were re-routed some years ago, there was no bus access to the Medical Centre, the chemist, the TN2 Centre or the local shops - all on Greggs Wood Road. Some residents are having to pay £8 for a taxi to drive them the short distance to their doctor's appointment - clearly a nonsense when buses run just yards away.

The meeting was positive and productive, and Arriva were certainly in listening mode. For KCC's part, I undertook to look into several issues which made Arriva's job a little more difficult. In the spirit of the recently-signed Quality Bus Partnership between Arriva, Tunbridge Wells Borough Council and Kent County Council, I agreed to try to resolve these issues for the benefit of all.

The good news was the announcement by Arriva that they have ordered three brand new buses for the 277 route, each with dropped access suitable for elderly and disabled passengers. Each bus costs £90,000, and this investment of £270,000 is made that much easier by the fact that Greggs Wood Road will soon be resurfaced and therefore safer for the new buses to travel down.

It was a really useful meeting, and I'm grateful to Greg Clark for organising it. If we all play our part, once again we can deliver a partnership win for Sherwood.

It's a great day for tennis

What an unbelievable men's final at Wimbledon! The suspense was awful, with the British weather giving stop/start all afternoon.

Nearly five hours - the longest men's singles final in history - seventeen minutes past nine by the time Federer's return ball clipped the net.

And at 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, (3-7), 6-7, (8-10), and 9-7 this was way past tie break, even if they were allowed. As one of the BBC comentators put it - "this is just different tennis to anything we've ever seen before."

And what a great guy Nadal is. Of his opponent he said to Sue Barker "He's still the best - he's still number one - he's still five times champion."

As someone commented - it's a great day for tennis.

Surrounded on all sides by beautiful gems

I got up yesterday at 6am - unusual for a Saturday - and jumped in the car with my eldest daughter - even more unusual that she was up at 6am too! We had to be in Milton Keynes for 9.00 to pick up some printing equipment that I'd bought last week on eBay.

We arrived at 9.30, having stopped for breakfast en route, and loaded the car. On our return, the traffic on the A21 was stacked, so we diverted via Five Oak Green.

Driving through Tudeley we passed the entrance to All Saints' Church and I mentioned to my daughter the stained glass windows by Marc Chagall for which the church is famous. She asked to see them, so we turned around and stopped off.

How lucky are we in Kent? We're surrounded on all sides by beautiful gems such as this - and how often do we just pass by and take them for granted?

Will Cameron still return when he's Prime Minister?

The audience of around 1200 predominantly local authority councillors at the LGA Conference is a tough enough one for local government speakers. For those from our national political parties, it's a minefield; over the years we've heard parliamentarians who clearly don't have the slightest idea about what local government actually does - we've heard the "we know best", the "just collect the bins and leave the rest to us" approach that often leaves more animosity than if they hadn't turned up in the first place.

This year, we heard an eclectic mix - from John Healey and Hazel Blears, to David Cameron and Nick Clegg. One of my Labour colleagues expressed surprise that neither Healey nor Blears used the opportunity to good effect - another "we know best" performance left the audience confused. Equally, Nick "Super Stud" Clegg was eminently forgettable, studiously reading his speech, an old-fashioned "we're the only real alternative" party political broadcast. Yet Cameron gave an inspiring performance, eschewing the rostrum for another lapel-miked, off-the-cuff analysis of the disconnect between a Labour government who are out of ideas and out of money. He talked about his social regeneration policy which needed all to work together - with devolution from a Conservative government to local authorities, and secondary devolution from local councils to the communities they serve.

He answered questions too - and not just the usual "specially selected, friendly fire" questions either. Tough questions from Conservative and Labour councillors about local government finance, about localsim and about whether Cameron's 'double devolution' promise was real. A rather sad and pointlessly barbed LibDem press statement, read out for no reason other than for a few cheap quotes in the local press was met with charm and humour, bringing laughter and applause from the audience.

Finally, David Cameron made an appeal to councillors of all parties to work with the new Conservative government to close the gap in our societies, and to finally mend our broken society. And the acid test? Will Cameron still return when he's Prime Minister...

A priviledge to be in local government

Following my two days of crisis innoculation training this week, I hot-footed it down to Bournemouth, where the LGA (Local Government Association) Annual Conference. This is a great opportunity to meet with colleagues old and new; to discover best practuce in other parts of the country that can be used back at home; and to share our own initiatives for the benefit of councils up and down the country.

It was in this last respect that I dashed down, checked into my hotel and rushed off to the Royal Exeter Hotel to give a presentation on the Kent TeleHealth Programme. KCC Leader Paul Carter gave a presentation on our Supporting Independence Programme, whilst other officer and member colleagues presented on Kent TV and the revolution in parent choice for those with learning disabled children.

The audience included Sir Simon Milton, Chairman of the LGA, senior policy staff from the IDeA and several other county councils as well as many district councillors from Kent.

As the presentations unfolded, I realised how lucky I am to work at Kent County Council - where innovation is a stock in trade, and where process and regulation takes second place against outcomes for the people we serve. Of course, as a large authority we have a little extra scope to try out new things, but all the same, it's a priviledge to be in local government at an authority such as ours.

Prepared for the unthinkable

I spent a fascinating couple of days this week. I enrolled last year on the new Kent Leadership Programme, which brings together senior managers and members from Kent County Council, Health, Police and the voluntary sector to teach us the skills required for tomorrow's leadership challenges.

Module three was this week, and set out to teach us resilience in crisis management, across both local and international boundaries. To do this, we attended the Kent Police Training College to spend time in the 'Hydra Suite'. This is a facility where, split into small groups, we were shut into small 'syndicate rooms' - where all information and intelligence is filtered through a central control room.

Various "crisis simulations" were sprung on us, where available information was limited, where both public and the media needed our instant reponses, and where urgent briefings were needed from us within impossibly short timescales. The whole exercise was designed to heap pressure on us, changing goalposts and bombarding us with intelligence, some valuable and some worthless. Our rooms are wired for sound and vision, and our reactions, discussions and team dynamics were all monitored and reviewed after the exercise.

The whole two days were pressured, fraught and scary. Such crises can occur at any time - remember foot and mouth across the county? Or the flooding which threatened our coastal sea defences? Or even the hopelessly improbable Folkestone earthquake?

For those of us who work to deliver services day in, day out to hundreds of thousands of people across Kent, this training is invaluable and critical. After this course I feel a lot more confident and prepared for the unthinkable.