Dartford Borough Council goes on 1 April 2028; North Kent Council, 81 councillors for Dartford, Gravesham and Medway, replaces it. Key dates, money and Monday's deadline.

Dartford Borough Council will be abolished on 1 April 2028 and replaced by a new council called North Kent Council, covering Dartford, Gravesham and Medway with 81 councillors. The elections that were due in the borough in May 2027 will instead be elections to that new council, and the councils involved have until Monday 17 August to send the Government the last details it needs to write the law that does it. That is the substance of two letters from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government that go well beyond the geography announced in July. (Decision letter to Kent and Medway council leaders, 16 July 2026; Implementation letter to Kent and Medway chief executives, 22 July 2026)

Dartford’s own announcement on 16 July gave the map: Kent County Council, Medway Council and the 12 district, borough and city councils go, and four unitary councils take over everything from education and social care to bins, leisure centres and housing. It carried a statement from council leader Jeremy Kite that “nothing will change overnight” and that the current council keeps running services until spring 2028. (Ministers decide future shape of Kent and Medway’s councils, Dartford Borough Council, 16 July 2026) What it did not carry is the name, the councillor numbers, the election date, the money or the deadlines. Those are in the letters.

140 councillors become 81

Today the three areas are represented by 42 Dartford borough councillors, 39 in Gravesham and 59 on Medway Council, 140 in all, before counting the 81 members of Kent County Council who also serve Dartford and Gravesham. (Dartford Borough Council members index; Gravesham Borough Council members index; Medway Council members index; Kent County Council members index) From 2028 the whole area gets 81 councillors on one council.

Bar chart: Dartford Borough Council 42 councillors, Gravesham 39, Medway 59, combined 140, against 81 for North Kent Council from 2028
Elected members on the three councils North Kent Council replaces, against the new council's fixed number of 81. Graphic by Dartford Online from the MHCLG implementation letter and each council's members index.

Put against population, that is a large change in how far each councillor’s patch stretches. The Office for National Statistics puts Dartford’s mid-2025 population at 126,297, Gravesham’s at 111,221 and Medway’s at 292,697, a combined 530,215. (ONS mid-year population estimates via Nomis) That works out at roughly 3,007 residents per Dartford borough councillor now and roughly 6,546 per North Kent councillor from 2028.

The letter also settles the other three: West Kent (Maidstone, Sevenoaks, Tonbridge and Malling, Tunbridge Wells) gets 84 councillors, Mid Kent (Ashford, Folkestone and Hythe, Swale) 60 and East Kent (Canterbury, Dover, Thanet) 66. These are legal names only. Once it exists a council can rename itself under section 74 of the Local Government Act 1972 with a two-thirds vote, or simply trade under a different name; ministers ruled out “City” in any legal name, the “-ern” suffix and dashes. (Implementation letter, 22 July 2026)

Why Dartford is grouped with Medway

The Secretary of State, Steve Reed, chose the four-council proposal put forward by Dover, Swale and Thanet councils over the alternatives, including a single council for all 1.9 million people of Kent and Medway, which he said “did not meet the criteria” because of its size and its “untested federated model”. On the north, his letter says the area “is a nationally significant growth area within the Thames Estuary corridor with key urban centres driving growth in housing and commercial development”, and that the chosen option “performed particularly well in supporting housing delivery” and in lining up with existing NHS and other public sector boundaries. He also acknowledged that two of the four new councils fall below the Government’s 500,000 population figure, adding that the figure “has, however, always remained a guiding principle, not a fixed threshold”. At 530,215 people, North Kent is not one of the two. (Decision letter, 16 July 2026)

The May 2027 election changes

Dartford elects all 42 of its councillors at once every four years; the last borough elections were on 2 May 2019 and 4 May 2023, which put the next ones in May 2027. (Election results, Dartford Borough Council) The implementation letter says the Structural Changes Order “will replace any scheduled local elections in May 2027 with elections to the new councils”. Whoever wins in May 2027 will spend most of their first year on a “shadow” North Kent Council, preparing budgets and plans, appointing statutory officers and adopting a leader-and-cabinet model, before taking over on 1 April 2028; the existing councils, and the councillors elected in 2023, remain responsible for services until then. The Local Government Boundary Commission is expected to redraw the wards properly before the election after that; the wards used in 2027 will be interim ones built from existing borough wards, county divisions and parishes. (Implementation letter, 22 July 2026)

What has to be sent by Monday

The 22 July letter asks the councils for four things by 17 August: which council’s head of paid service should be returning officer for the inaugural North Kent election; a table of interim wards for the new council, each built from existing electoral areas, with councillor numbers; the current parish council election cycles, so parish polls can be aligned with the new council’s; and which council should receive the transition grant. The same date is the last chance for a “unanimous” representation, meaning all the affected councils in the new area agreeing, on names and councillor numbers. The Government “anticipates” sharing the draft Order in September, sending it through the parliamentary Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and a debate in each House, and having it in force during 2027. (Implementation letter, 22 July 2026)

Who runs the transition, and the money

North Kent gets its own arrangements because it is the only new council that absorbs an existing unitary. Its Joint Committee will have 16 members: eight from Medway Council, four from the districts (Dartford and Gravesham) and four from Kent County Council, with the chair from Medway and the deputy chair from elsewhere. A single Implementation Team for the whole of Kent and Medway will be led by KCC’s head of paid service, with Medway’s head of paid service as the deputy for North Kent. The Government is paying £900,000 per new council towards transition costs, £3.6 million across Kent and Medway, and intends to pay each grant to the council employing that area’s deputy team leader unless the councils agree otherwise, so Medway is the default recipient for North Kent. Up to a further £150,000 per new council is promised from a national £63 million capacity fund for children’s services, adult social care and public health leadership. Once the Order is in force a section 24 direction will require Dartford, Gravesham and the others to get the shadow council’s consent before signing certain contracts or selling certain assets. (Implementation letter, 22 July 2026)

What it means for you

  • Nothing changes to your services before April 2028. Bin collections, council tax bills, planning applications and housing stay with Dartford Borough Council, and roads, schools and social care with Kent County Council, until both are abolished on the same day.
  • Your next council vote is May 2027, but for a different council. You will be electing North Kent councillors on interim wards, not a new Dartford Borough Council.
  • Council tax is not settled by these letters. Neither one says anything about how the three areas’ different council tax rates will be brought together; that will be a decision for the shadow council and later legislation, and we will report it when a document exists.
  • Names can still change. “North Kent Council” is the legal name; a two-thirds vote of the new council can change it later, and the councils have until Monday to make a joint case for something else now.

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