Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council goes on 1 April 2028, replaced by an 84-seat West Kent Council. Councils' final representations close today, 17 August.
The council that replaces Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council has a name, a size and a first deadline. It will be called West Kent Council, it will cover Tonbridge and Malling, Maidstone, Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells, and it will have 84 councillors. Ministers set all three out in an implementation letter sent to Kent and Medway chief executives on 22 July, published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
The first deadline is today, Monday 17 August. By tonight the four councils must tell the ministry which council’s head of paid service should act as returning officer for the new authority’s first election, what the interim ward boundaries should be, and how parish and town council elections should be brought into line with it. The same date closes the only remaining window to alter what has already been decided: ministers say they will consider “any further unanimous representations”, meaning a request agreed by all four councils in the West Kent area, on matters “such as names and councillor numbers”.
What has been decided
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Steve Reed, wrote to Kent and Medway council leaders on 16 July confirming he would implement the four-unitary proposal put forward by Dover District Council, Swale Borough Council and Thanet District Council. His decision letter puts Tonbridge and Malling in the council referred to in that proposal as “West”, alongside Maidstone Borough Council, Sevenoaks District Council and Tunbridge Wells Borough Council.
Kent County Council, Medway Council and the twelve district, borough and city councils are all abolished on 1 April 2028 and replaced by four authorities. The implementation letter gives their legal names and sizes:
- West Kent (Maidstone, Sevenoaks, Tonbridge and Malling, Tunbridge Wells): 84 councillors
- North Kent (Dartford, Gravesham, Medway): 81 councillors
- Mid Kent (Ashford, Folkestone and Hythe, Swale): 60 councillors
- East Kent (Canterbury, Dover, Thanet): 66 councillors
The names are legal names rather than final ones. Once a new council exists it can rename itself under section 74 of the Local Government Act 1972, which needs a council meeting called for that purpose and the support of two thirds of the members voting. Ministers ruled out the “-ern” suffix, giving “Western Kent” as their own example of what is not allowed, along with dashes and the word “City” in any legal name.
Eighty-four councillors instead of 186
West Kent Council’s 84 seats replace the borough and district councillors elected across the four areas today. Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council has 44 members, Maidstone Borough Council 49, Sevenoaks District Council 54 and Tunbridge Wells Borough Council 39, a total of 186. Kent County Council’s 81 members, whose divisions include Tonbridge, Malling Central, Malling North, Malling North East, Malling Rural East and Malling West, go as well when the county council is abolished.
Interim wards for the first election have not been drawn yet. That is one of the things councils must submit today, and the letter says they “can be based on existing wards, divisions and parish boundaries” but not polling districts. The Local Government Boundary Commission for England will run a full electoral review of all the new councils before the following election.
Tonbridge votes for two new councils on the same day
Tonbridge has an extra layer to this. On 24 February borough councillors agreed to create Tonbridge Town Council, which until now has had no parish or town council of its own. It will have 18 councillors across six wards, with a new ward called Oast covering the unparished parts of Hildenborough, and its first elections are due in May 2027.
That is the same month the implementation letter fixes for the first elections to West Kent Council. The letter says parish elections “will be aligned with the new unitary elections”, and asks the four councils to report by today which years each parish council in the area currently goes to the polls and how alignment should be achieved. So a Tonbridge resident’s first vote for the town council and their first vote for the council that replaces the borough are likely to fall on the same day, and the same is true across the borough’s existing parishes from Snodland to Hadlow.
The dates that matter
- 17 August 2026: councils return returning officers, interim warding and parish election information, and any unanimous representations on the name or councillor numbers.
- September 2026: the ministry expects to share a draft Structural Changes Order with the councils.
- 2027: the Order is scrutinised by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and the Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, debated in committee in both Houses and put to approval motions. Ministers anticipate it will be made and come into force during 2027.
- May 2027: elections to the new councils. These replace any local elections scheduled for that month, and sitting councillors have their terms extended to that point.
- 1 April 2028: Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council and Kent County Council cease to exist and West Kent Council takes on every local government service in the area.
Councillors elected in May 2027 spend most of their first year on a “shadow” council with preparatory powers only, setting the first budget and plans before the new authority takes over services.
Who runs the transition
There will be one implementation team for the whole county, led by Kent County Council’s head of paid service, with four deputies, one from each new area. For West Kent that deputy is to be “agreed locally” from one of the four districts. Each new council also gets a joint committee, and West Kent’s is one of the two largest in the county at 16 members: eight from the four boroughs and districts and eight from the county council. The ministry has appointed Theresa Grant as the area’s sector advisor.
The government has attached money to the work. Each new unitary gets £900,000 in transition funding, £3.6 million across Kent and Medway, paid by Section 31 grant to the council employing the deputy implementation lead unless the councils agree otherwise. On top of that, up to £150,000 per new council is available for leadership capacity in children’s services, adult social care and public health, drawn from a £63 million national capacity fund. The letter is specific that short term consultancy “is unlikely to offer good value for money” and that spending should leave a lasting legacy.
Once the Order is in force, ministers expect to issue a direction under section 24 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act. That will require Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council and its neighbours to get the shadow council’s consent before signing certain contracts or disposing of certain assets, so that decisions taken in the final months do not saddle the new authority.
The shape Tonbridge and Malling asked for, inside a plan it did not
The West Kent geography is exactly what this borough proposed. On 18 November 2025 the borough’s cabinet resolved to submit Option 3a, a three-unitary model “with a West Kent authority comprising Tonbridge and Malling, Sevenoaks, Tunbridge Wells and Maidstone areas”, describing it as “the most efficient and least disruptive multi-unitary option for Kent”. The cabinet minute records that the option was potentially supported by five councils across the county. What ministers chose instead is the four-unitary version, which keeps the West Kent grouping intact but divides the rest of the county three ways rather than two.
Mr Reed’s letter sets out his reasoning. He rejected the single-unitary proposal for Kent and Medway outright, citing a population “at over 1.9 million, far exceeding the 500,000 guiding principle” and describing the federated model behind it as untested. He judged the four-council option strongest on housing delivery, alignment with economic areas and existing public sector boundaries, and on neighbourhood governance through area committees. He described West Kent as “a hub for professional services, life sciences and creative industries with vibrant town centres and strong residential markets”. He accepted that two of the four new councils fall below 500,000 residents and answered that directly: “The 500,000 figure has, however, always remained a guiding principle, not a fixed threshold.”
Responding on the council’s own news pages on 16 July, the leader of Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council, Cllr Matt Boughton, said: “We welcome ministers’ decision to move forward with a four unitary council model for Kent and Medway. Throughout this process, Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council has consistently supported an approach based on strong independent evidence that offers the best balance of high-quality, cost-effective services and alignment with local communities.” Kent and Medway’s council leaders said in a joint statement that “not one of our services will change overnight” and that residents “will still be dealing with the same council staff tomorrow and the day after that”.
What it means for you
Nothing changes for the next 19 months. Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council keeps collecting your bins, running housing and deciding planning applications until 31 March 2028, and Kent County Council keeps running roads, schools and social care. The implementation letter is explicit that existing councils “remain responsible for services in your areas until they are abolished”.
The first thing you will actually do differently is vote. In May 2027 there is no borough election as the cycle would normally provide; instead you elect members of West Kent Council, in wards that have not been drawn yet, and if you live in Tonbridge you elect the town’s first town councillors on the same day. Whoever you elect to West Kent will not run services for almost a year after that.
After April 2028, everything goes through one council: bins, planning and housing, but also the county responsibilities of highways and roadworks, libraries, schools and adult and children’s social care. That is the practical change, and it is why the size of the new council matters. Eighty-four members will cover a population currently served by 186 borough and district councillors plus a share of Kent’s 81.
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