Kent County Council has been accused of going “a little bit over the top” with its Brexit preparations by a senior officer from a neighbouring authority.

Phil Watts, chief finance officer at Medway Council, made the comments after Cllr Tristan Osborne (Lab) asked what work was going on behind the scenes ahead of the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union.

He told the audit committee last night (March 21): “I think the view we’ve taken here is the uncertainty about the whens and whats is so great that you could be planning for an infinite number of scenarios.

“If I’m honest, I think the approach taken at Kent County Council (KCC) is probably a little bit over the top actually.

“There’s extremes but within each individual service area at Medway, managers will know what’s going on by watching the news and intelligence coming out of government – then thinking about their service in that context.

“But we’ve not done anything particularly overtly or publicly.”

Mr Watts went on to say Medway Council is part of the Kent Resilience Network team working on Brexit, but added the authority was not making a “big song and dance” about its preparations.

"Our officers have not got the time to dwell on red herrings about what may or may not happen..." Cllr Adrian Gulvin

Earlier this week, KCC leader Cllr Paul Carter (Con) claimed the county is as prepared for Brexit as it can be, adding it “touches virtually every part of this organisation”.

As part of this, Highways England has announced Operation Brock will be implemented from Monday morning.

But it is not a view shared by Medway cabinet member Cllr Adrian Gulvin (Con), who says it is impossible to prepare for every eventuality due to the continued uncertainty surrounding the Brexit process.

He added: “Donald Rumsfeld summed it up very well – you can deal with the known unknowns, but the unknown unknowns are impossible.

“We took a conscious decision that we believe our controls and systems in this council are robust. Our officers have not got the time to dwell on red herrings about what may or may not happen.

“If our roads come to a grinding halt we have sufficient back-up capacity at this council to deal with it if and when it happens. To try and make plans to something you haven’t a clue what might happen is chasing after fantasy.”

Cllr Osborne reiterated his belief the approach taken by Medway Council is “not right”.

Meanwhile, the authority has confirmed it is ready to host European Parliament elections in May if necessary.

Returning officer Neil Davies told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “We have a set of suitable contingency arrangements in place to deal with a variety of possible electoral events including the holding of European parliamentary elections.”

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