In compiling the village plan, we have been collecting together statistical data from a number of sources. This section of the exhibition presents a small selection of what has been discovered so far.

Information on Bus Routes

The following bus routes serve Hartley (number of buses per day). Usage figures for commercially operated buses are not available, but Kent County Council has supplied details for the subsidised buses.

1. there are some very long intervals between buses in the early afternoon
2. ** additional journeys start at Longfield
3. *** one journey to Sevenoaks in the morning, and two return journeys in the evening

Services supported by the county KCC transport integration currently have 6 contracts for non-commercial bus services in Hartley. I understand KCC pay the contractor, who is also allowed to keep the fare revenue. The supported routes are:

Contract	Route	Operator	Annual Price	End Date
30011	423/489 (Sun)	Redroute	£33,307	31.3.2005
30012A	K14/K15 (Mon - Sat)	Redroute	£48,035	31.3.2005
30012B	K14/K15 (Sun)	Redroute	£7,842	31.3.2005
30107	489 (5.10pm Gravesend - NAG M-F)	Arriva	£1,988	31.3.2005
30220	K16 (School)	Passenger Services	£31,729	31.7.2006
30237	423/489 (Mon - Sat evenings)	Redroute	£58,000	31.3.2006

Passenger usage of these buses is as follows:

Contract	Route	Passengers	Daily Average	Subsidy (£)	Revenue
30011	423/489 Sun	8471	139	3.93	£7,650.82
30012A	K14/K15 M-S	26683	89	1.69	£23,757.80
30012B	K14/K15 Sun	1667	27	4.70	£1,468.38
30107	489 M-F 5.10pm	5007	20	0.40	£6,332.25
30220	K16	24946	130	1.26	£28,915.46
30237	423/489 M-S eves	13558	45	4.11	£13,233.63

Within the figures there has been a tailing off of passenger usage on the weekday K14/K15 from July 2004. Before then the daily average was 98, after it had fallen by 20% to 80 per day. This would appear to show the effect of Sevenoaks Council's decision to remove the 20p bus pass for pensioners and the disabled from 1 July 2004. Clearly there are a number of pensioners unable to afford to travel by bus now. The whole viability of this bus service in Hartley is now threatened.

Information on Health Services

Introduction

Hartley is part of the Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley Primary Healthcare Trust, which covers the boroughs of Dartford, Gravesend and also the northern parishes of Sevenoaks. Figures were published in 2002 on a variety of health issues for the 52 council wards of the area. For the purposes of these statistics, "Hartley" includes both Hartley and Fawkham.

Fertility and Mortality

Hartley has one of the lowest rates of fertility in the district at 48th of 52. There are 1,053 females between 15 and 44 and the number of births was 143, giving a rate per thousand of 45.3 against a district average of 61.9 (and over 100 in 2 Dartford wards). The low birth rate is probably explained by the big dip in the census figures for people aged 20-34 living in Hartley, which is the peak age for conception (29 is national average). The number of teenage conceptions (ie. under 20) was 4 out of 185 females aged 15-19. A rate of 21.6 per thousand, putting Hartley 35th and well below the district average (Joyce Green was highest with 220.6 per thousand). In total mortality between 1996 and 2000 was 103 people under 75 (including circulatory disease - 37, cancer - 41, respiratory disease - 8), and 290 over 75 (including circulatory disease - 128, cancer - 41, respiratory disease - 85). There were fewer than 3 infant deaths annually. The Health Trust publishes charts with more details. The Health Trust has national targets to reduce mortality in the under 75s for Cancer (by 20%) and circulatory disease (by 40%). They aim to reduce mortality for all ages in accidents by 20% and suicides by 20%.

Child Poverty and Deprivation

This is included in health authority figures because of the links between low income and poor health. In general Hartley is one of the less deprived wards both nationally and in Kent, although Ash and Longfield are more prosperous still. The two areas where the parish plan may need to look at are Access to Services and Housing, where Hartley falls in the bottom half of England's 8,414 council wards.

Hospital Admissions

Figures are only on a district wide basis. In 2000/1 there were 40,378 hospital admissions, divided as follows: birth (2,520), planned day case (9,295), planned inpatient (8,763), emergency (15,063), maternity - mother (3,860), transfer (877). Figures are available for 25 different categories of preliminary diagnosis. The one ward based figure published is for Coronary Heart Disease, where the admission rate for Hartley in the period 1998-2001 was 291 per 100,000 population - the 4th lowest out of the 44 wards included, but because of the small numbers involved and the statistical range of error involved, the health trust was reluctant to draw many conclusions from this.

Information on Usage of Hartley Library

Introduction

Hartley Library began life in the old WI hall in Ash Road. By 1930 it was thought to be one of the better stocked libraries with about 180 books. The current building was opened in 1968. Then Hartley was the only library in the district. Since then, New Ash Green (1982) and Longfield have been added.

Hartley's opening hours were reduced when New Ash Green Library was opened. Until 1996 Hartley library was part of the Dartford district for libraries when it was transferred to Sevenoaks District. However, over the years Dartford Library has built an excellent collection of material on Hartley.

New Ash Green is the nearest library to receive Sevenoaks council agendas and reports.

Opening Hours

The current opening hours for the library and those for 1976 are as follows:

	1976	2005
Monday	Closed	Closed
Tuesday	10-1 and 2-7	9-1 and 2-5
Wednesday	10-1 and 2-5	Closed
Thursday	10-1 and 2-5	9-1 and 2-5
Friday	10-1 and 2-7	9-1 and 2-5
Saturday	9.30 - 1	9.30-12.30
Total	31½ hours	24½ hours

Usage

Current annual reports do not give individual library usage statistics so the latest is for the year 1995/6. The usage of Hartley Library compares favourably with others libraries in the Sevenoaks district as is shown in the following table.

Information on Newspaper Readership

Introduction

Newspaper readership statistics are important in deciding where people in Hartley identify with. After all it shows which area's news people are interested in, and, in the case of free papers, where businesses believe their customers are. Newspaper statistics are to be found at http://www.jicreg.co.uk/ .

The Statistics

Once again we are dealing with an area greater than Hartley. JICREG's "Hartley Rural" area is 10,225 households consisting of Hartley, Fawkham, Longfield, New Barn, New Ash Green, Meopham, Vigo, Harvel and Luddesdown. It does not include Ash, Hodsoll Street, Southfleet or West Kingsdown, for example. The geography of the area means that the figures are likely to overstate the importance of the Gravesend titles to Hartley, and understate the Dartford titles. The paid for titles have a much smaller circulation but are read more.

In our area the Gravesend Messenger is the most popular paid for paper followed by the Dartford Times.

Information on Nursery Education and Primary and Special Schools

Nursery Education

There is no specific information on attendance at these schools for Hartley children. However Ofsted has produced reports on the following local schools with taxpayer funded places:

Roundash Pre-school, Hartley (87 pupils)
Steephill School, Fawkham (about 13 pre-school pupils)
Hickory House, Main Road, Longfield (numbers not given)
Molly's Pre-school, Main Road, Longfield (71 pupils)
New Ash Green Pre-school unit (57 pupils)
Greenash Pre-school (27 pupils)

Primary Schools There are 371 primary school age pupils in Hartley who attend schools run by Kent County Council. The majority attend the two local primary schools - Hartley Primary School (56%) and Our Lady of Hartley RC school (17%). Many children (15%) attend Langafel Church of England School, particularly those from the north of Hartley. A small number of children from Hartley go to Fawkham (4%), Meopham (1%) and a few other places.

The Independent Steephill School in Fawkham is not included in the above figures. According to the 2004 Ofsted report they have 97 pupils from 3½ to 11, but it has a fairly wide catchment area.

According to KCC's statistics, there is very little surplus capacity in the local primary schools, which is surely something to be considered before any more housing development is considered.

Special Schools 11 children from Hartley attend the county's special schools. 5 each go to Milestone School in Hartley, and Ifield School in Gravesend, while 1 attends the Grange Park School in West Malling.

Information on Secondary Schools

Secondary Schools The figures for attendance at secondary schools show graphically the links that Hartley has to the north. 52% of the 385 secondary age pupils from Hartley attend schools in Dartford borough, 43% in Gravesend and only 3.6% in Sevenoaks. The attendance at the Sevenoaks Bradbourne School arose because of oversubscription in North Kent. Axton Chase School in Longfield takes over a quarter of Hartley pupils.

Nearly half of Hartley's secondary schoolchildren receive a grammar school education, whilst 9% attend Church Schools in Gravesend.

(NB. Leigh City Technology College is omitted because this is run by the government and not KCC, therefore KCC do not have figures)

Introduction

Retailing is clearly a very important area for the parish plan to look at. In Hartley we buy goods worth some £24 million pounds annually - that's about £4,000 by every person. In addition the sector is a major local employer. Kent County Council has published a great deal of information about shopping patterns as part of the background work for the Kent Structure Plan.

Much of the information comes from a survey conducted in 2000, where Hartley, Ash, Fawkham, Horton Kirby, Farningham and West Kingsdown were grouped into one area with a population of 22,294 (2001). It is called "West Kingsdown", and the population is expected to fall to 21,715 by 2011

The Main Shopping Centres Gravesend (£236 million pa) and Dartford (£198 million pa) are the 5th and 6th largest town centres in Kent in turnover. The more distant centres of Sevenoaks (14th at £78 million) and Swanley (19th at £50 million) clearly have less influence on shopping decisions in Hartley.

In terms of "footfall" (that is the numbers of shoppers), the two North Kent towns attract the bigger numbers. In 2003 Gravesend had 21,000 shoppers per week, Dartford had 20,000 and Sevenoaks 11,000. All places had declined since 2000 under the influence of Bluewater.

Where do we shop? There are figures available for the core comparison goods for the West Kingsdown zone, ie. not trips to supermarkets or Comet. It is expected that for Hartley the figures for Gravesend would be much higher, while that of Sevenoaks and Swanley would be much lower.

Information on Traffic and Road Accidents

Traffic Levels and Speed Two traffic surveys were conducted in 1999 and 2004. The number of vehicles and their speed was recorded each hour of the day. It is difficult to draw some conclusions, because they are taken at different points of the road and different times. However the following conclusions seem possible: Both show a worrying amount of speeding at all times of the day, with over half breaking the speed limit and significant numbers going over 40mph (in 2 cases over 65mph).

The difference in totals between the St Johns Lane and Merton Avenue figures suggest that about 3,500 vehicle journeys originate in Hartley daily

(a) Near the junction with St Johns Lane (28 Jan - 7 Feb 1999, Mondays to Fridays only)

(b) Near Junction with Merton Avenue (8 - 13 October 2004)

Road Accidents 28 personal injury accidents have been recorded for the parish of Hartley between 1 September 2001 and 31 August 2004. These figures exclude damage only accidents.

Clearly Ash Road is the main area of concern, but note 12 of its 18 accidents were bunched into the two areas of Hoselands Hill and the stretch between Larksfield and Old Downs. However given their shorter length and lower traffic levels, it may be that the Village Plan should also look at ways of making Grange Lane and Wellfield safer for traffic.

Local Information from the 2001 Population Census

In the census figures," Hartley" is in fact Hartley, Hodsoll Street and Ridley, "Longfield" is Longfield, New Barn and Southfleet, and "Ash" is Ash and New Ash Green.

The total population for each area was:

Work The three areas display similar figures, except in the number of students and retired. In addition, a slightly higher percentage of employers live in Hartley and Longfield.

Hartley people travel furthest to work on average - 12 miles. And driving your own car to work is by far the biggest means of transport to work, apparently without any passengers. Ash appears to be the greenest ward with the highest numbers travelling by foot or on bicycle. And over the three wards 1,000 people do not have to commute to work at all!

Car Ownership The number of households without a car is highest in Hartley, but conversely this village has a greater proportion of households with more than 3 cars too: In all there were 3,671 cars or vans in Hartley and Hodsoll Street in 2001.

Housing There are very few empty properties in Hartley and Ash (1%), but for some reason Longfield had almost 3% standing empty in 2001.The following table shows the different types of occupation.

This is a very small selection of information available from the census.

Information on Council Tax and Non-domestic Rates

Council Tax

Council tax banding can be an indicator of relative prosperity. But as with many official statistics they need some caution; for example a pensioner in a Band G house may be cash poor, while another pensioner who has downsized to a Band C house may appear to be less well off by this indicator, but in reality will have a much higher disposable income.

There are 8 bands lettered A to H, which are based on the valuation of the property on 1 April 1991. Band D is the national norm, and the amount of council tax everyone pays is shown as a proportion of the Band D figure.

The council tax bandings go some way to explaining why Hartley is not classified as a deprived area. For while nationally band D is the norm, in Hartley it is band F:

Business Rates

Hartley has 40 non-domestic properties subject to business rates. These range from the Manor Road pavilion at Longfield Hill with a rateable value of £300, to the Country Club which has a rateable value of £36,100. A typical shop unit is about £3,000 - £3,500. In all the 40 properties have a total rateable value of £247,820.