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Wednesday May 29 | 2019
OF TUNBRIDGE WELLS
Call goes out to BT not to block precinct space By Richard Williams PLANS to turn part of the precinct in Tunbridge Wells town centre into a more ‘usable space’ are being hampered by a string of nine phone boxes. Calverley Road, the part of the precinct that runs from Camden Road to Fiveways, is expected to become a more permanent home to the Farmers’ Market, once its temporary tenure in Market Square expires next year. In addition, a Tunbridge Wells borough councillor believes the pedestrianised road outside Royal Victoria Place is being under-used and could become the site for a whole range of activities.
‘They are dirty and getting in the way of this becoming a useable space’ Karen Pengelly, Town Centre Manager
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Town keeps up the pressure with majority voting for Remain parties By Robert Forrester THE majority of voters across Tunbridge Wells nailed their colours to the mast of the ‘Remainers’ when they went to the polls for last week’s EU elections. Although the Brexit Party came out on top with a 32 per cent share of the local vote, the pro-European Liberal Democrat and Green parties between them received almost 50 per cent. Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has called the elections a ‘big win’ for his party. They took four out of the ten seats contested for the South-East region, and nationally secured 29 MEPs out of the UK’s 73 seats. The Lib Dems won three seats across the South-East, while the Conserva-
tives, Labour and Greens each secured one MEP. Farage’s party hoovered up a 36.07 per cent share of the votes across the South-East region, with the next largest party, the Lib Dems, achieving 25.75 per cent. The Greens were the third largest party with 13.5 per cent.
‘The results sent a clear message that Tunbridge Wells wants to stay in EU’ TW Lib Dem Leader Ben Chapelard There was some confusion after the Brexit Party and Liberal Democrats both fielded a candidate named Alex-
andra Phillips, and both Ms Phillips won seats for their respective parties. In total, anti-Brexit parties such as the Greens and Liberal Democrats secured 39 per cent of the vote across the South East. In Tunbridge Wells, the only borough in Kent to vote Remain in the original EU referendum, with 54.9 per cent voting to stay in the EU, anti-Brexit sentiment was much higher. While the Brexit Party won the largest vote share in the borough of Tunbridge Wells, securing 11,370 votes (32 per cent of the 34,663 votes counted), Remain parties achieved a far higher vote share when counted together. The Liberal Democrats narrowly missed out coming top, polling 10,889,
with the Greens securing 4,624 votes, resulting in the two pro-Remain parties seeing a combined vote share of nearly 50 per cent (49.4 per cent) – much higher than the 39 per cent achieved across the rest of the region. Just over 3,500 people voted Conservative in the borough last week, while Labour only managed a little over 1,500 votes. Turnout was also higher in Tunbridge Wells than in the rest of the South-East, with more than 43 per cent of the electorate turning out to vote, compared to 39.36 per cent across the region. The Leader of Tunbridge Wells Liberal Democrats, Ben Chapelard, said the
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