Wednesday September 4 | 2019
Times
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OF TONBRIDGE
“Last year was horrendous, wondering if they would get to school or whether we would all have to jump in the car, drive to Tonbridge and then race back
LOCAL MP Tom Tugendhat has described the Prime Minister’s decision to prorogue Parliament last week as ‘setting a dangerous precedent’. Mr Tugendhat, who is chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, will be at the forefront of dealings with the EU when Britain officially leaves the Union. The House of Commons returned from its summer break yesterday [Tuesday] but has only four days to sit before the five-week suspension begins. MPs will then have from October 14 until the Brexit deadline of October 31 to debate the issue. Usually Parliament is suspended for three weeks at this time of year for party conference season. Mr Tugendhat said Boris Johnson’s move to suspend Parliament in the run-up to Brexit was ‘deliberately confrontational but not unconstitutional’. He told the Times: “When the issues in question are so important it goes against the concept of Parliamentary sovereignty – a key reason for leaving in 2016 [referendum] – to reduce the time which Parliament sits and debate matters of such importance.” He described it as a ‘massive dead cat on the table’, referring to a strategy where something dramatic and shocking is said or done in order to divert attention away from another damaging issue. It’s a phrase Mr Johnson employs himself, as a tactic he admired in the work of his former mayoral campaign manager, Tory spin
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Continued on page 2
Opening in Paddock Wood on Sunday 8th of September! Adults £12.00 Kids: £8.50 PUBLIC SERVANT: Peter Bolt with wife Margaret when he received the title of Honorary Freeman of the Borough. See page 2
Children safe on country lanes as ‘people power’ bus keeps running By Andy Tong andy@timesoftonbridge.co.uk
57 Maidstone Road,Paddock Wood,Tonbridge, Kent, TN12 6DJ
O N IS ’T SU M E ISS O T F H SO E M SE A PT G E A M ZI B N E E R
MP says Boris ‘set dangerous precedent’ by confrontation
Carvery
Mob: 07554 580723
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A RURAL bus service taking children to school in Tonbridge is set to continue during the new academic year. The 200S drives around the lanes near Hildenborough, allowing pupils to travel safely in the dark where there are no streetlights or pavements. It is being run by local company Go Coach after Arriva cancelled the original 572 service ‘due to insufficient usage’ a year ago, shortly before the start of term. Parents, local residents, KCC councillor for Malling West Harry Rayner and Hildenborough Parish Council campaigned for its retention.
But when that failed, they approached Go Coach and the councillors contributed £3,500 to help fund a 10-week trial for the 200S last January. The Sevenoaks company agreed to keep the service going until the summer holidays, monitoring the number of students catching the bus before confirming it will keep running. Kirsty Alfredson, a mother of two girls who live on Mill Lane, launched the Bring Back the 572 campaign and believes the numbers show the service is a valuable resource. She said: “We needed to prove that the numbers were there, and we know there are more than 30 children using the bus each day. “As local residents we always knew
there was support for it, and it’s a relief to know they are going back to school with a bus that’s reliable!
‘We needed to prove that the numbers were there, and we know there are more than 30 children using the bus each day’