Enough is Enough: Families Demand Action on Chilmington's Unsafe School Route
Singleton and Great Chart families are still facing an unsafe walk to Chilmington Green Secondary School.
As term draws to a close in the first year of Chilmington Green Secondary School being fully open on site, families are still facing an unsafe walking route and a daily burden no parent should be expected to carry. Outside the school, parents and councillors stood together handing out leaflets to parents and passers-by. Their message was simple. The designated walking route between Singleton and Chilmington is not safe, and families cannot keep carrying the five-hour daily burden it creates. Kent County Council insists the route meets national guidance. The people who actually walk it know otherwise. What happened was not a protest. It was a community saying enough is enough.
The campaign outside the school was calm, organised and determined. Parents handed out leaflets, councillors spoke with families, and children walked past the very route Kent County Council insists is safe. The contrast was impossible to ignore. On one side, a community asking for a basic level of safety. On the other, a policy built on post-war walking rules that no longer match the roads, traffic or realities of modern family life.
None of this arrived as a surprise. It did not creep up quietly. For more than five years, long before any school was occupied, Great Chart with Singleton Parish Council warned Kent County Council and Ashford Borough Council that the new schools were being built with no safe walking routes to reach them. KCC managed to create some access via Public Rights of Way for other directions, but the link from Singleton and Great Chart was not considered because it fell outside the red line of the development boundary. The schools opened. The safe routes still never came.
Construction began in 2019, but progress stalled when the lead developer, Hodson Development (Chilmington), entered administration. With work paused and no clear timeline for resumption, the full build-out is now significantly delayed. Families are living with the consequences of a development that opened its schools before it built the infrastructure needed to reach them.
When parents raise concerns now, KCC officers fall back on post-war legislation that allows children over eight to walk up to three miles to school if the route is judged safe. These rules originate in the Education Act 1944 and were carried forward through the Children Act 1948 and later Education Acts written for a country with very different roads, traffic levels and expectations of child safety.
The 2026 national statutory guidance sets a far higher bar. A walking route is only considered safe if a child could use it in reasonable safety, even if unaccompanied by a parent. KCC says it follows national guidance and relies on the recognised walked route assessment criteria used by councils across the country to judge hazards such as traffic speed, visibility, verges, crossings and lighting. However, the Assessment of Walked Routes to School Guidelines, if applied properly, show the Singleton to Chilmington route fails on multiple criteria.
Despite this, KCC officers argue that because a parent could accompany a secondary school child, the route is safe. This interpretation ignores the reality of modern family life. It requires parents to spend a significant part of the day walking back and forth. It leaves women walking alone on isolated field paths or beside fast traffic on the A28. It does not reflect the safety standards families expect in 2026.
Andrea Taylor-Harris, one of the parents organising Transport for Singleton, describes the route plainly. “It is our closest secondary school, and from our home in Singleton the walking route is just under three miles and takes over an hour each way. The route is not safe. It includes unlit, secluded areas, grass verges that flood and busy roads including the A28. Parents do not believe it is safe for children and themselves to use every day.”
KCC’s own Active Travel Strategy promises accessible, safer and well-planned walking routes. It commits the council to making active travel an attractive and realistic choice for short journeys, improving safety, reducing traffic danger and creating routes people can use confidently. None of those commitments has been applied here. The designated route may meet the historic distance requirement, but it does not meet the safety expectations of modern families. Councillors have said openly that they do not believe it is safe for children to use independently.
In a letter to parent David Naughton, KCC Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport Peter Osborne acknowledged the limitations of the surrounding infrastructure. He confirmed that the developer was expected to introduce a regular bus service, but regrettably this has not come forward. He also noted that the turning facility within the school site is not suitable for full-size buses, limiting what can be delivered in the short term. The letter recognises the problem. It does not solve it.
Kent County Council has submitted a planning application to spend £100,000 on a short section of path at the entrance to Great Chart. On paper, this would help children avoid walking on the grass verge. In reality, it is the wrong solution in the wrong place. The area floods frequently. It is the entrance to the village and forms part of the street scene that residents have maintained for many years. It is not where the only danger lies. It is not where the route becomes impossible. It is not where children are forced into multiple lanes of fast traffic.
We also do not know how many children are actually using this part of the route. At present, it cannot be many, if any at all, because the journey is so long and demanding. Families are driving or finding lifts where possible because the designated route is not practical.
The proposed £100,000 path does not address the missing link between Singleton and Chilmington. It does not create a continuous, accessible footpath. It is not where the main dangers lie, and it is not where the children and parents are being forced into multiple lanes of traffic.
This is not just a school route. It is the missing link between Chilmington and the established communities of Singleton and Great Chart. A continuous footway along Mock Lane would serve both sides of the community. It would give Chilmington residents a safe walking link to Singleton’s GP surgery, dentist, post office and shops, and give Singleton and Great Chart families a safe route into the new schools. A cosmetic fix at the wrong end of the village distracts from the real issue. The community needs a safe, continuous route.
For families, the impact is immediate and exhausting. The journey adds up to an impossible daily burden. The route they walk takes over an hour each way. Because Kent County Council expects parents to accompany children, that becomes a five-hour ordeal every school day. For families with more than one child, working, caring responsibilities or mobility needs, this is unachievable and unsafe. Parents have come together under the campaign group Transport for Chilmington and launched a petition calling for a parent-paid school bus service. Many families are not eligible for free transport, including those who have chosen not to send their children to the nearest school because it is a faith school. They are asking for a bus service they can pay for or, preferably, a direct, continuous walking route that connects Chilmington to the existing community facilities at Singleton and Great Chart without requiring children to take risks.
For Adele and David Naughton, the lack of transport has turned daily life into a logistical battle. “This service is desperately needed to ensure the safety of our daughter,” Adele says. “Expecting a parent to spend five hours every day walking back and forth to a secondary school is impossible. The route is completely inaccessible for our disabled son who attends a different school.” Her experience exposes a deeper problem. The 1948 guidance assumes parents have unlimited time, perfect mobility and no caring responsibilities. It does not reflect modern family life.
As a wheelchair user who can no longer drive, I feel this exclusion personally. I would love to be able to collect my grandson from Chilmington Primary School. I miss those magical chats on the way home that I used to have with his Dad and Uncle. Without continuous, accessible footways, disabled residents are cut off from their own community.
Kent County Councillors Nick Wibberley and Bill Barrett, who is also an Ashford Borough Councillor, have stepped forward to support families calling for a temporary bus service. Great Chart with Singleton Parish Council has raised concerns about the route for over five years, with success for families on the Chilmington site itself but still struggling with the main route to and from the development.
When challenged, authorities often point to planning boundaries. They say the missing footpath falls outside the red line of the development parcel or that progress stalled when developers went into administration. Families do not live inside red lines on planning maps. When private development models fail, public authorities still have a duty of care. KCC already owns a significant portion of the land needed for a permanent footpath aside to Mock Lane.
This path is not only a school route. It is a vital link between two communities. Until Chilmington’s commercial centre is built, residents need a safe way to reach Singleton’s GP surgery, dentist, post office and shops.
The Transport for Chilmington petition has forced the issue into public view. A temporary bus service is essential, but it cannot be the long-term solution. Immediate action is needed. KCC must provide transport relief now so children are not forced onto fast rural lanes next term. An extra year group of children will be attempting to get to school. Permanent infrastructure must follow. KCC should commit to building a continuous, accessible footpath on the land it already owns.
Families have waited long enough. The warnings have been clear for years, and the consequences are now visible every morning on narrow rural lanes. A temporary bus service is the only immediate solution, and a continuous, accessible footway is the only long-term fix. Kent County Council must act. Children should not be walking beside fast traffic, and parents should not be carrying an exhausting daily burden. The community has spoken. It is time for the council to listen.
The choice facing Kent County Council is now simple: act immediately or continue exposing children to unacceptable risks.
The Transport for Chilmington petition calling for a paid bus service can be found here.
Disclosure: I am an NCTJ-qualified journalist who also serves as a parish councillor on Great Chart with Singleton Parish Council, where I am Chair of the Planning Committee. This article has been written independently in my capacity as a journalist and is not an official council communication.
True Colours ISSN 2977 6120