May 2019

Published: 20 May 2019

 May 2019

It is an honour to have been elected Mayor of Sevenoaks and to have the opportunity over the coming year, both to promote the town, and to thank all those who contribute in a myriad of ways to building and supporting our local community. I should pay tribute, too, to the outgoing Mayor, Councillor Roddy Hogarth and his wife Mary, who have been tireless over the past year in representing the town and supporting the Powerchair Football Club as the Mayor’s charity, as well as those benefitting from the Sevenoaks Mayor’s Fund.

Your Town Councillors – from whatever party – are dedicated to making Sevenoaks a wonderful place to live in, work in and visit. We are an activist council, with fantastic staff and a nationally recognized track record for delivering worthwhile community projects. As Mayor, I will be looking to gather local views on how the Town Council should be shaping its future strategy. We have an exciting year ahead; we will see, for example, the start of the building of the new Bat & Ball Centre and the finalizing of the Neighbourhood Development Plan.

My own association with Sevenoaks stretches back to the 1960s. I grew up and was educated here. My career with the Diplomatic Service took me away from Sevenoaks for some 25 years. But the homing instinct was strong. My wife, Madeleine, now teaches at St Thomas’s primary school and our three daughters were all educated locally.

During my time as a diplomat, I was posted to a range of conflict-torn environments and worked very closely with members of our Armed Forces. I therefore have some understanding of the stresses and strains that so many soldiers, sailors and airmen have had to endure in recent years. For this reason, I have chosen SSAFA as the Mayor’s principle charity this year. I hope very much that I can help raise SSAFA’s profile locally, encourage some new volunteers to sign up and raise some much-needed funding. For more information on SSAFA and on how you might be able to help, please see the article on page 2.

In addition to SSAFA, the Sevenoaks Air Cadets will also be a Mayor’s Charity, and I will continue to support the two unfinished projects within the Mayor’s Sevenoaks Fund namely the 3G Rugby Pitch at Knole and Stag refurbishment.

 Cllr Nicholas Busvine OBE