Traders struggling with the effects of pedestrianisation are demanding to know when £100,000, earmarked to help their shops on Sheppey compete with the out-of-town Neats Court retail park, will be spent.

Swale council still has the cash in a bank account where it has remained unused for EIGHT years.

Brian Spoor, former chairman of the Sheerness Town Team, said: “I am disappointed to see town centre businesses struggling despite this money still languishing in the council’s coffers. Perhaps it can subsidise free parking?”

A Swale council spokesman said: “We met Sheerness Town Council on March 11 to discuss what to do with the money and councillors provided us with a list of priority projects they would like to see.

"Despite the disruption caused by the pandemic some work has taken place to look at improvements around the clock tower.”

He said the money could not be spent on free parking because the developer's Section 106 conditions insisted it be used for “improving the appearance and character of the High Street with hard and soft landscaping features, shop front improvements or public art works.”

He added: “We are already using substantial amount of our reserves to address the cost pressures we are facing from coronavirus.

"Any subsidy for parking from reserves would not only reduce the size of the fund but also lower the income we receive, adding to the pressures we are facing to provide services for local people.”

Swale council has asked firms to tender to repaint the town’s lampposts, barriers and bollards.

The spokesman said: “We are paying for this out of our budgets, not the Section 106 money. The tender was stopped due to the coronavirus outbreak but we’ll resume as soon as we can.”

Why Neats Court Cash is still unspent

It was back in 2012 that Swale council was given £100,000 as part of a Section 106 developers contribution when Morrisons built its out-of-town supermarket at Neats Court, Queenborough.

The money was earmarked to be spent in Sheerness to help the town’s shops compete on a level playing field with their new rivals. But it came with a catch, it had to be spent by September 2017 and on something physical.

Officers decided to use it to ‘pump prime’ applications for National Lottery Heritage cash to release up to £1 million to give the town a much-needed facelift.

One ambitious plan included renovating the derelict water tower in Trinity Road.

The council applied for two grants but both attempts were thrown out. The first was deemed too ambitious for the money and the second was sent back because there had been no consultation with the public.

The council was forced to seek a humiliating time extension to this October or lose the money. It has now asked the Sheppey Community Development Forum to make a bid on its behalf.

Mounting cost of consultants

Swale council has already spent more than £100,000 on consultants while deciding how to spend its £100,000 windfall on Sheerness.

It allocated £50,000 to devise a new plan for the town and West Sheppey and £50,000 on specialist advice on developing buildings such as the derelict water tower and former military hospital on the steel mill site.

It also pledged £70,000 to the Sheerness Dockyard Preservation Trust’s bid for Heritage Lottery Funding to restore the fire-ravaged Dockyard Church and £35,000 for advice on how to market heritage across the borough.

That culminated in a series of presentations telling attraction owners like holiday parks and museums how to tell the ‘Sheppey story’ while ignoring the already prepared SheppeyProud survey by Sheppey Matters in its own bid for coastal town regeneration cash.

Town's traffic ban

Traders are up in arms because cars, buses and lorries have been banned from Sheerness on Mondays to Saturdays from 10am to 4pm by Swale council as part of emergency measures to make it safer for shoppers during the coronavirus pandemic.

Traders say they face losses as footfall is down and that customers have lost 20 minutes of free parking in the High Street.

Sheerness Town Council is conducting a survey to see how pedestrianisation can be better implemented and has asked Swale council to transfer its free High Street parking to its town centre car parks.

Sandwich town council banned vehicles from its four main streets after non-essential shops opened on June 15 but in a surprise move made a U-turn on June 30 after complaints from traders.

Not everyone is against pedestrianisation in Sheerness.

Leah Carey said on social media: “I thought it was so much better being closed off when I was in town. Now we can move out of each others’ way without having to step in to the road with cars coming.”

And Frances Wallace wrote: “I think it is a much better idea. The council should have done it when they built the Millennium Way. It’s much nicer and safer to not have to worry about traffic and fumes and there are several car parks around the town centre.”

Comments can be emailed to sheerness-tc@outlook.com or posted to the clerk at Masters House, Trinity Road, Sheerness.

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