Catch up with all the news across the county with Abigail Hook.
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00:00Hello, good evening and welcome to Kentonite live on KMTV. I'm Abbey Hook. Here are your
00:28top stories on Tuesday the 5th of November. Locked out or in? Campaigners slam council's
00:35padlock decision despite other gates left unlocked at controversial fields. If you were,
00:41for example, trapped in this field, you couldn't escape anyway. So it's essentially more dangerous
00:46by padlocking these gates. Grounds for reopening? Will Folkestone Sports Centre be up and running
00:53in time to save hundreds of jobs? This is about people's livelihoods. The decision
00:58about those livelihoods is not mine. The decision is in the hands of whoever
01:04is going to run the sports centre. Remember, remember the 5th of November at the Spitfire
01:10KMFM host bonfire night celebrations in Canterbury.
01:25Good evening. A playing field in Whitstable has been partly padlocked shut as residents claim
01:30Kent County Council has gone overboard in its efforts to get rid of safety concerns.
01:35It comes after campaigners have fought back over plans to turn Church Street playing fields
01:40into a new school, which they say will take away a vital part of the community.
01:45Bartholomew Hall's been down to Whitstable to find out more.
01:50Heading out for some fresh air used to be a walk in the park, but now for residents in Whitstable
01:55it's not as easy after these padlocks were put in place by Kent County Council to the
01:59entrances of one of the town's most popular green spaces. It comes after Church Street
02:04playing fields was earmarked by the local authority as the location of a new special
02:08educational needs school back in 2023, receiving a backlash from those who want to keep using the
02:14space for leisure. However, in an email Kent County Council says its surveyors locked the
02:19site due to the possibility of an attacker hiding behind a bush or tree and that members of the
02:24public were using the site as a shortcut rather than the surrounding footways.
02:29Mum of two Victoria Annable says the site is a vital part of the community,
02:33especially for her children.
02:35It's great, you know, I live on a couple of roads away, they come here, they're, you know,
02:39late primary age and they come here on their own and I feel that they are safe and there's no
02:44worries. I think there was a sense of who's done this because if it was the council there should
02:48be a sign and a reason as to why they've done it, but there wasn't. There's also entrances at the
02:54back that are still open and anyway if you were, for example, trapped in this field you couldn't
02:59escape anyway so it's essentially more dangerous by padlocking these gates.
03:04Well over here on the north side of the playing fields there are three gated entrances getting
03:09you into the grassy area. Two of them have been padlocked shut, this one however, well it's
03:14completely open allowing anybody to get in or out and I'm standing here now there's no sign that any
03:20padlocks have been tampered with or removed so it's unclear why this one doesn't have a padlock
03:26on it. Despite any of that, the field today is full of dog walkers and people simply enjoying
03:31the nature. I use this field I'd say four or five times a week. I can't tell you how much I've missed
03:43it if it goes. Do you feel unsafe when you come here? That's the question. No, not at all. Very
03:48safe. Very, very safe. There's lights all around. I feel totally safe here. It wouldn't even cross
03:54my mind to be honest. Many of the residents here including Victoria are part of the Friends of the
04:00Church Street Fields Facebook group which has been campaigning to preserve the space for years.
04:05The group says it will continue to campaign as it hopes a compromise can be found where a version
04:10of the space can be kept open for years to come. Bartholomew Hall for KMTV. Bartholomew Hall
04:17reporting there. Now a suspected cannabis farm was found on Maidstone High Street earlier today.
04:23Pictures show officers removing individual plants outside a property near a British Heart Foundation
04:29shop. It's not the first time in the area though as just last month three people were arrested
04:34after another cannabis factory was found inside a flat in Chatham Road. Kent Police has been
04:39approached for more information about today's discovery. The MP for Folkestone and Hyde says
04:47he won't stand for anything but the town's leisure centre reopening as just that. It suddenly closed
04:54back in July and 144 people lost their jobs immediately after the charity running it said
05:00it was just too expensive to stay open any longer. Now prospective buyers say they intend to reopen
05:07the site as a sports centre. Well I asked Tony Vaughan if that sounded certain enough for him.
05:14I actually only learned about this from looking at your website. I mean from looking at the
05:18article it appears that what they're saying is that there is every bidder that they have wants
05:24to reopen it but I'm actually not sure what that means. I mean what I would like to see is the
05:28administrators accept a leisure-led bid so that means a bid from a leisure operator who knows how
05:35to excuse me operate leisure facilities rather than a kind of property developer-led bid where
05:42a property developer has expressed an intention to open the the sports centre again but without
05:48any kind of concrete plan to do so. Will you be putting that directly to them and pushing
05:52that on them to get that answer if you hadn't already known today? Yeah absolutely I mean
05:59every kind of avenue of pressure is needed. I don't know all about the inner workings of where
06:05they are. I just hope that the fact that they have a load of bidders who say they want to reopen
06:13the centre plus the fact that Folks and Lies District Council has accepted our application to
06:19designate the site an asset of community value as well as the issue of the covenants will make
06:25them take the right or help persuade them to take the right decision as I think they want to.
06:30What about those 144 jobs that was a key part of this story right from the beginning that
06:35the doors were shut and those 144 people didn't have any jobs anymore. How have you been keeping
06:41in touch with them and making sure they're okay and not suffering and can find work can
06:47maintain an income considering it was such a quick decision? Yeah this was a decision that just came
06:53completely out of the blue and people just weren't prepared for the decision that was taken and so
06:59you know there's been a lot of people completely at sea and not knowing what to do next. I know
07:05help was put on to help people apply for new jobs to find new opportunities going forward.
07:11What happens to those jobs ultimately will be down to whoever operates the centre if it again
07:16is reopened as a sports centre but you know as we know the administrators have said we are not
07:23making any promises and so you know we've gone from a situation where the centre was completely
07:29closed to there being a kind of chink of light and I would sincerely hope that as many of those jobs
07:35as possible would be maintained. If it doesn't reopen as a leisure centre and as a sports centre
07:43and doesn't supply those 144 jobs those same numbers, how much power do you have and how much
07:50I suppose energy will you put into making sure that those people are sort of given back what
07:56they lost? How crucial will that be for you and will you stand by the location if it isn't reopened
08:02as what you're asking for? Well it's absolutely key to me. This is about people's jobs isn't it?
08:08This is about people's livelihoods. The decision about those livelihoods is not mine. The decision
08:14is in the hands of whoever is going to run the sports centre again but what I would say is that
08:21that I'm not the administrator. It might be and the administrators have said this they can't they
08:27at least they said it in the summer that they can't rule out that the centre won't reopen at
08:32all and so if that happened then then no jobs would be would be there so you know anything
08:38is better than that. Yvonne there speaking to me earlier about the Folkestone Sports Centre that
08:44is hopefully reopening for those 144 people without a job since it shut in July. Next evening
08:52Tunbridge MP Tom Tugendhat will not serve in the Conservative shadow cabinet despite running for
08:57leader the former the former security secretary doesn't have a top job on the front
09:04bench alongside Kemi Badenoch. It means a return to the back benches for Tugendhat something he
09:08wasn't expecting just a month ago. Well to tell us more about the story I'm glad to say I'm joined
09:13by reporter Xenia Nakfi. Xenia will this be a shock for the MP? I mean I wouldn't say so Abby.
09:21National media reports that he's turned down a position in Kemi Badenoch's shadow cabinet but
09:27before I get on to that let me play you a clip of the day before he was knocked out of the
09:32leadership race last month. The choice that we really have to make is do we want to change?
09:38Do we want to go from being shadow ministers to ministers? Do we want to make sure that this
09:42country has a real choice at the next general election? Because if we do then we only really
09:48have one choice and that's to make sure we choose somebody who can speak to the whole country
09:53who can actually make our message heard and who doesn't just make us feel good in the room
09:58but makes us heard in the country. Tom Tugendhat there speaking just before he was eliminated as
10:03you said from that leadership race. He said they're about swapping shadow minister jobs for
10:08minister jobs he'll be doing neither now. So Xenia what's next for the Tunbridge MP? Well he's always
10:14been a very popular constituency MP. I mean in 2019 his majority was nearly 27,000 and in 2024
10:23he's still won by a huge margin. Some of the issues he's been famous for include Tony's Law
10:29where he called for tougher sentences for child cruelty and neglect, kept rural GP surgery open
10:35and helped mould operation Brock to be less disruptive to the M20. But there have been some
10:43boundary changes since the last election so his constituency this time is very much so Tunbridge
10:48rather than Moorling which is now under Helen Grant's remit. We're talking there about constituency
10:55work. Do you think this is the end of the road for Tom in the front bench of politics? Well it's hard
11:02to tell as it is a surprise to all of us today that he's not in the shadow cabinet. He has been
11:07quite clear about his ambitions to become Prime Minister one day and he is only 51. There's been
11:13five leaders of the Conservative Party in just five years so it may just be that he's hedging
11:19his bets and seeing how well Kenny Badenoch gets on. It's definitely interesting, a close eye
11:25we'll be keeping on Tom Tugendhat, one of the most senior politicians here in the county. Thank you
11:30very much Xenia. Now it's time for a very short break but coming up what impact will more bus cuts
11:35have on residents in Dover? Some say they can't get to hospital appointments any other way and
11:40where are you heading off for bonfire night this evening? Well Finn's been down in Canterbury, find
11:45out why after the break. See you then.
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15:12Hello and welcome back to Kentonite live on KMTV. Now a van was stuck in between width
15:18restriction barriers for almost seven hours near Sittingbourne. A white Vauxhall got wedged at the
15:23pinch point in Church Road in Merston before a Salvatore delivery truck also got trapped less
15:29than 30 minutes later. Police were called to the scene just after 12.45pm and officers and
15:35helped manage traffic while recovery was arranged. The Vauxhall was cleared by around 6pm around
15:40seven hours after it got stuck there. The speeding prevention measure is notorious for drivers
15:45getting stuck. Here a well-known incident back in August 2022 when an Asda delivery van also got
15:51trapped and it's prompted debate on social media about whether the width restrictions are even
15:56needed. Now there are fears people will miss hospital appointments, become isolated and left
16:05waiting in the cold because of bus cuts in Dover. The 64 Stagecoach service in particular usually
16:11goes by the Buckland Hospital twice an hour but as of the 17th of November it'll pass by just
16:18the once. Locals say it's disgraceful but the company says not enough people actually use the
16:23route. We spoke to those few however campaigning to keep the services. I want to go to Folkestone
16:31or I want to go to Canterbury the bus services are pretty reliable but if I want to go anywhere
16:37else and particularly if I want to go anywhere in the evening it's nonsense. This is going to
16:43be devastating particularly in a rural community that we have because the services have been cut
16:49back and what we need is clean, reliable, safe and frequent bus services. Going from like what it is
16:58now 20-30 minutes an hour to one an hour imagine that you've got an appointment at a hospital, you've
17:03got cancer and you've got to wait for an hour for a bus it's horrific. You know you've got to think
17:08about these people whether they'd be young, whether they'd be infirm, whether they'd be senior. At the end of the day a bus service is
17:14supposed to be for the public and not just a shareholder. I've got a heart condition with
17:20COPD and other things you know so I need surgery appointments and I need hospital appointments
17:26and you can't always get them within the time frame that the
17:30timetable has been stated roughly between nine o'clock and two o'clock.
17:36Well Stagecoach says local town bus routes are changing to offer more direct and reliable
17:41journeys. The operator stresses that changes to the 64 service were not to do with the arrival
17:46of fast track but purely from commercial decisions based on passenger levels.
17:51The service says the number of passengers using the buses between town and river is very small
17:56and does not support the cost of providing those two buses an hour. Now don't forget as well as
18:03watching us here every night at 5.30 you can keep up to date with all your latest stories across
18:07Kent by logging on to our website it's kmtv.co.uk. There you'll find all our reports including this
18:13one about a group of women who trekked up Kilimanjaro and raised hundreds of thousands
18:18of pounds to fund breast cancer screening equipment at Maidstone Hospital. A new state-of-the-art
18:24piece of equipment has now been introduced to the breast cancer unit at the Maidstone Hospital.
18:29This is thanks to a determined group of women that trekked the Kilimanjaro mountain in Africa
18:35raising over 150,000 pounds. For the women that took part this was not however the first
18:41difficult challenge that they had been on as many have trekked through their own journeys with
18:45breast cancer. Among them was former Kent MP Tracey Crouch. I was a patient here at Maidstone
18:52Tambridge Wells Trust and I went through the Peggy Wood Centre and had two lumpectomies and
18:57chemotherapy and radiotherapy as a consequence of breast cancer so it's rather interesting now
19:03to be able to see the machine that people who have been diagnosed today will benefit from. The
19:08idea of Kilimanjaro 2 actually climbing the mountain was based on my sister being diagnosed
19:13with breast cancer and it was really early days of Covid we were on Zoom at home and she was going
19:18through her chemotherapy treatment and I just said to her when this is all over shall we climb a
19:23mountain and she said absolutely. We were an amazing team there were several challenges and
19:29I wouldn't lie it was very very very tough eight days. We're singing quite a lot we had our own
19:35Spotify playlist you know we listened to podcasts together and we just kept putting one foot in
19:40front of the other. There were some incredible life-changing moments and there were some times
19:45where we just wanted to give up and we couldn't stay another night in a freezing cold tent but it
19:51was the team that got us through it. Thanks to Tracey and the rest of the women who took part
19:54in the trek up the Kilimanjaro this piece of equipment has now been introduced to the breast
19:59cancer unit at the Maidstone Hospital. The equipment makes surgeries more efficient targeted
20:04and quicker and really helps a lot of people and will help a lot of people into the future.
20:10The most challenging part of the breast cancer journey is waiting for results whether it is
20:15to find out whether they have breast cancer especially after surgery when they're waiting
20:19for results to find out whether they need more surgery or what other treatment they would need.
20:24This machine is hopefully aiming to reduce that waiting time that we currently have for pathology
20:30results to come back. Now we can expedite that process speed up the results and hopefully
20:36impact the outcome for these patients. So thanks to these women the new advanced equipment will
20:43help speed up diagnosis reduce waiting times and ease anxiety for women facing breast cancer
20:49across Kent. Kristen Hawthorne, KMTV in Maidstone.
20:54And finally this evening of course across the country thousands will be gathering for
20:59bonfire celebrations and here in the county from Dartford to Dover and it's in the county's only
21:04city that Kent Cricket Club are getting ready for one of the biggest displays happening tonight.
21:10Hosted by KMFM's Gary and Chelsea hundreds are set to be wowed at the Spitfire grounds.
21:15Our reporter Finn McDermott has been getting a behind the scenes look of the setup.
21:21Well it's been 400 years since the gunpowder plot and Canterbury has a lot of history
21:26but it also knows how to celebrate it in style. We're at the Spitfire ground and soon all this
21:32darkness you're seeing before you that's going to be lit up by some amazing fireworks a party
21:36atmosphere and party anthems from your KMFM hosts that's Gary and Chelsea and we'll be talking to
21:42them in just a moment. Now just some information for you the doors opened at five and there's
21:47gonna be lots of attractions lots of music until the actual fireworks display which is at 7 15
21:52tonight. Unfortunately if you haven't got a ticket yet you're out of luck as the doors were sold out
21:58it's been going for many many years and it's one of the most well attended fireworks events in the
22:04city with the last three all selling out in advance. I'm very excited I'm going to be joined
22:10by someone who's also very excited this is Gary Wilson from KMFM. How are you doing Gary? Very good
22:15thank you yeah excited like you say sold out 6,000 people going to be here soon just in position and
22:20the best view and yeah just really excited about tonight. Now 6,000 people is that is that typical
22:25or? Yeah that's the sellout number so we've sold out and here we are you know full capacity that's
22:30us. Brilliant and how many years have you and Chelsea been doing it? We've been here for the
22:34last three years this is our third year in a row now and it's always a brilliant night there's a
22:38fantastic band who you might have heard doing their soundcheck just now Funk House who really
22:44it's I've never been to a fireworks night where everyone has a dance like a club festival vibe
22:49but those guys will bring that. We've got the panto stars coming as well so that is going to be
22:53absolutely amazing. A couple of local legends you probably know about Ben Roddy who is the main man
22:58when it comes to being a lady he is the classic and legendary panto dame at the Marlow.
23:04We've got Mr Maker himself who I know a lot of people of lots of different ages very excited.
23:09I'm quite excited about that one yeah big Mr Maker. Phil Gallagher and Maisie Smith as well from Eastenders
23:13and Strictly. Wow so it's a star-studded night then? Yeah absolutely absolutely so I can't wait
23:18to meet them all and introduce them to everyone and get the fireworks going at 7.15 with a big
23:23countdown. Brilliant and what's different from previous years what's changed? I think really
23:28it's the addition we've got a bit of the extra festive flavor this year because the panto stars
23:33have been with us we've not had panto stars before we've had all kinds of different things
23:36different competitions we've had people running across and doing obstacle courses in previous
23:41years we've had a fire walk one year which I got to commentate on which I never thought would be
23:46on a list of things that I'd be doing but that's what we did but this year it's all about the panto
23:50stars and us and the music and playing some of our games from the KMFM breakfast show as well.
23:54Brilliant and this might be a bit of a cheeky question but how's tonight going to compare to
23:57those previous years is it going to blow it out of the water? It's going to be the best one ever of course
24:02it will be. Brilliant and as we're getting into these winter months it's getting darker what do
24:06you think events like these mean for the Kent community? Oh it's absolutely fantastic of course
24:10it is people can come out they can come out with their friends they can come and be in a safe
24:14environment well looked after there's everything people want they can just have a really nice
24:18family night in a nice safe and really happy atmosphere. Brilliant and I'm appreciative
24:22that I've bombarded you with a lot of questions just one last one yes if there's any song that
24:25you think deserves to be played tonight what do you think it's going to be? Katy Perry. Firework
24:30of course well that's Gary Wilson well now it's like I said looking a bit dark but Kent Fire and
24:36Rescue have told us a bit about how you can stay safe during this bonfire night. Fireworks and
24:42bonfires can be hot so there's you know potential for burn injuries so advice around burn injuries
24:52is if you are unfortunate enough to get burned to make sure that any burn is cooled for at least 20
24:58minutes with cool water and if it's a serious burn ensure that the emergency services are called as
25:04well so they can give you additional advice and respond if necessary. Also with if your clothing
25:12is to catch fire to stop drop and roll again this is information that's available on our website
25:18should people want to read up on it. Now it's looking a bit dark at the Spitfire ground for
25:24the fireworks but soon the sky will be filled with light so let's take a look at the weather
25:29where you're celebrating at home. It's looking misty this evening across Kent with highs of 10
25:38degrees and lows of 8. The mist carries on through to tomorrow morning with temperatures reaching 11
25:43in Margate and Dover. Continuing into the evening there's going to be grey skies as the mist
25:49continues in Tunbridge Wells with an average of 12 degrees and a high of 13 in Dover. Looking
25:54forward to the rest of the week temperatures will remain around 13 degrees across Thursday and Friday
26:00raising to 15 on Saturday with the skies remaining overcast into the weekend.
26:10Well now it's just a waiting game until we actually see the fireworks. I'm very excited
26:14I know you are can't wait. I'm excited too Finn bless him I think he's staying there at the Spitfire
26:21ground or coming back for the late 8pm news bulletin actually we'll need him for that but
26:26all the fireworks I hope you enjoy and stay very safe this evening for bonfire night. That's all
26:30we've got time for here on Kent Tonight live on KMTV. I'll see you again tomorrow bye-bye.
27:00you