Maidstone, Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge are currently unparished, and the rest of the area is parished. The area has a 2024 estimated population of 567,062. Plans to create it were halted in September 2026 and the first election was cancelled.
Under different boundaries, defined as the area west of the River Medway, West Kent was a traditional subdivision of Kent. It was advocated by the Association of the Men of Kent and Kentish Men, an organisation formed in 1913. The division may have risen from the ethnic differences approximately 1,500 years ago between the Jutish settlement of the east of the county and the Saxon presence in the west, although its origins are somewhat obscure. Residents of the traditional East Kent are called 'Men (or Maids) of Kent', as opposed to residents of West Kent, who are known as 'Kentish Men' or 'Kentish Maids'.
According to the BBC, a few hundred years later, it appears that the Men of Kent resisted William the Conqueror more stoutly than the Kentish Men, who surrendered.
The modern West Kent was first formed by proposals brought by Kent district councils as part of structural changes to local government in England which began in 2024. Prior to the local government reform, most of Kent had a two-tier system where Kent County Council and would provide local services.
Following the 2024 Devolution White Paper, the ruling Labour Party announced that the government would seek to establish unitary authorities in the remaining two-tier areas including Kent. In February 2025, the government wrote to the local authorities in Kent asking them to submit proposals for two-tier areas under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. A West Kent district was included in all the proposals brought forward by district councils while a single-unitary option merging Kent and Medway was supported by the county council.
Option 4b, with the boundaries as planned, was selected by the government in July 2026. The alternative proposal for four unitaries and the proposals for a single unitary, or three or five unitaries were not accepted. The district councils in West Kent all supported Option 3a, which would also have been the district established on its planned boundaries.
In September 2026, the Kent proposals were withdrawn by the government in light of new government advice. The first election in 2027 election was cancelled.
Governance
It will be run by West Kent Council, which will comprise 84 councillors.
