Catch up with all the latest news from across the county with Gabriel Morris.
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00:00Hello, I hope you've enjoyed the lovely sunshine we've been seeing today.
00:27Welcome to Ken Tonight Live here on KNTV. I'm Gabriel Morris. Here are your top stories on Tuesday 20th May.
00:36Eighty-five years on, Ramsgate honours Dunkirk heroes with plaque unveiling and remembrance event.
00:43Cost of living crisis continues. Canterbury food banks see surge in demand as families struggle over the holidays.
00:50And the historic tradition continues. Maidstone welcomes the new mayor with a colourful civic parade and chariot entrance.
00:57The first Ramsgate has continued to host celebration and remembrance events today to mark the 85th anniversary of Dunkirk.
01:05Prince Michael of Kent unveiled a new plaque honouring both the military and civilian efforts behind Operation Dynamo.
01:12Back in May 1940, more than 800 private boats set sail from Ramsgate to France, rescuing troops from advancing Nazi forces.
01:20Well, I visited Ramsgate today to see how the town is remembering this historic miracle.
01:26Ramsgate stands as the spiritual home of the little ships of Dunkirk.
01:30It's where most of them gathered before making the crossing to rescue Allied troops.
01:35That civilian effort helped save more than 300,000 lives.
01:39Today, the town continues to honour that pivotal moment in Second World War history.
01:46Crowds lined the streets as a marching band and parade filled the town centre.
01:51To see all this lovely parade and to honour our men that fought and didn't come back and all the navy and all the little boats that absolutely rescued everybody.
02:02They were marvellous. And this is an amazing event.
02:06Really, it's just came down to pay our respects to the people that didn't make it.
02:12The thing that stands out more than anything else is that we kept our freedom,
02:17whereas our allies on the European stage did not.
02:21They were invaded, so we can never quite know exactly how they suffered.
02:25And then, a royal arrival.
02:28Prince Michael of Kent unveiled an updated plaque commemorating both the military and civilian contributions to Operation Dynamo.
02:35One in four little ships sank during the mission, some with civilians on board.
02:43Today, His Royal Highness presented a bell recovered from one of those lost vessels.
02:48It'll make its way to Dunkirk tomorrow as around 60 little ships and a support fleet recreate that historic journey.
02:56An airshow followed with two key Royal Air Force aircraft that played a crucial role in the original operation.
03:03And our crowds are being greeted by a low-flying swordfish.
03:07This was used during Operation Dynamo to drop torpedoes on E and U boats over the seas of Calais.
03:13Then followed by the ever-popular Spitfire.
03:19This anniversary is believed to be the first without any surviving veterans, after it's understood the last passed away just last week.
03:29Organisers say it's now up to the next generation to keep the memory of 1940 alive.
03:34Roman, what was your favourite thing to see here today?
03:37The Spitfire aircraft.
03:39And why did you like the Spitfire so much?
03:42Because it was fast and upside down.
03:45And you feel like you learnt something here today, seeing all of this in action.
03:4985 years on, the faces may have changed, but the courage, sacrifice and unity of Dunkirk is still proudly remembered in Ramsgate's heart.
04:01Well, the celebrations continue tomorrow and I'll be joining in as a fleet heads to Dunkirk to recreate that journey which was made 85 years ago.
04:11You can follow that on the Kent Morning Show tomorrow from 7am and until Kent tonight at 7.30.
04:18Now for your news in brief.
04:21A young woman from Canterbury has paid tribute to her best friend, who died of a rare bile duct cancer at the age of just 33.
04:29Amy Tufts says Pilgrim Hospices gave Alex Streeter the compassion and dignity he deserved, even helping him host a night he's themed Living Wake before he passed.
04:38He raised nearly £2,000 for that charity that supported him through his final days.
04:43Pupils in Maidstone are being urged to stay vigilant after two students were attacked in Moat Park during daylight hours.
04:51Maidstone Grammar has warned families to be cautious with police and are now investigating and appealing for witnesses following similar reports of suspicious behaviour in the area.
05:01And a mystery man from Broadstairs has won more than £100,000 in Euro Millions and he's wasting no time putting it to good use.
05:11So what's he doing? Well, he's planning a dream holiday to Mauritius and a brand new car after matching five numbers and one lucky star in the April's draw.
05:21Well, it looks like it's going to be a fantastic trip for him. Lucky him.
05:25Well, now to the cost of living crisis as a food bank in Canterbury has seen a huge increase in demand for emergency children's parcels last month.
05:33The charity's chairman says they've seen a 100% year-on-year increase as parents struggled with the cost of living crisis over the last holidays.
05:41More than half of all parcels were delivered to homes while others were dropped off at schools.
05:47In a month now, we supply around in excess of 10,000 meals and that's for adults and children.
05:55The reason children's numbers escalated to, it was a record number of 6,669, was the school holidays.
06:05And that brings pressures of its own. It brings additional cost.
06:08And those that receive free school meals don't get that benefit during school holidays.
06:15Hi, David. It's Bartholomew here.
06:17The charity says that you guys have experienced a 100% year-on-year increase.
06:22What sort of a strain is that putting on your services?
06:25It's always tough. When I joined the charity five years ago, we were doing 2,000 meals a month.
06:34And then COVID came, swiftly followed by the cost of living crisis.
06:40We're used to doing in excess of 10,000 meals a month.
06:43And remember, this is in one district. This is just Canterbury, Whitstable and Herne Bay.
06:47We're servicing over the course of a year roughly 3, 3.5% of the entire population who are unable to meet their daily needs.
06:57It does put a strain on our resources, but we've built during that time.
07:01It's been organic growth and we're reasonably confident that we can maintain supply.
07:08Yeah, we see certain pressures on families at different times of the year.
07:12Of course, school holidays are tricky and particularly the Christmas period.
07:17I remember I've been down to your food bank before where you did an advent calendar of different items being donated and things like that.
07:23And those are the times you really focus on to get these food parcels out,
07:27especially at a time of year where we're meant to sort of give and be grateful around Christmas.
07:32But I suppose around those Easter holidays and just the school holidays in general,
07:36is it becoming more tricky for parents because doing things and keeping the children entertained is so expensive as well,
07:42that sort of it's that it's that balance between going out and doing fun things or having a meal on the table at the end of the day?
07:51Yeah, the cost of living crisis hasn't gone away.
07:54Inflation has been reduced.
07:56That doesn't mean food prices aren't still going up.
07:59And it's the last thing that goes for people.
08:03People will stop doing those things like going out for the day or going to the cinema or going to the pub in the evening.
08:10The absolute last thing that goes is food because it's the one thing you need on a daily basis.
08:15And so when people come to us, they are at the very bottom.
08:18Now, we know there can be a bit of a stigma around going to a food bank.
08:23People, you know, unfortunately feel ashamed almost that they sort of have to go to a food bank.
08:28How do you sort of get around that?
08:30And how do you help children and families receive those food parcels when when, you know, they might even struggle to come forward in the first place?
08:38The vast majority of the parcels we deliver go straight to people's homes.
08:46Others go to agencies like social services, but the vast majority go to people's homes.
08:51They're delivered anonymously.
08:53Nobody ever knows that you're receiving food from a food bank because retaining our clients dignity is a major, major part of what we do.
09:01We understand the shame that comes with picking up the phone and saying, I can't afford to eat.
09:06And so we make absolutely certain that people can't be identified as we deliver the food.
09:13Yeah, David, I remember last time I saw you within the sort of last six months or so,
09:18I was down at the food bank and speaking to sort of one of your call handlers.
09:21And he was telling me about the phone calls that he gets in every day and people him answering the phone and then sort of divulging their story.
09:28And those numbers were just going up and up. Is it the same sort of story? You're getting a lot of people calling in?
09:34Absolutely. It's very busy. I mean, I've sat in on those calls, too, and it's pretty grim.
09:40You know, we get people phoning in on a daily basis because they can't afford to feed themselves and they can't they can barely afford to feed their children.
09:50The main driver for clients coming to us is people unable to meet daily living costs.
09:58The second biggest is benefits too low. So quite clearly there's an issue that money isn't enough for most people.
10:07And it's not a case of budgeting. In my experience, most people that have very little money are very good at budgeting,
10:14whereas people that have more money tend to be more slack at it.
10:19And can you just give us a bit of an idea of the scale as to where you're delivering your parcels to?
10:24Of course, it's Canterbury Food Bank, so I'd imagine East Kent, but just how far are you delivering?
10:29We deliver within the Canterbury City Council area. We mirror it exactly.
10:34So we do Wistapal, Canterbury, Herne Bay and all those surrounding villages.
10:39It's a population of about 170,000.
10:42And as I said, we have serviced the need of about three and a half percent of that in the last year.
10:49And David, just very quickly, could you tell us about your Better Off calculator?
10:54It's something that the charity's just launched.
10:57Yeah, thank you for that. The Better Off calculator allows clients and people who might be clients in the future,
11:04you don't have to be, to come onto the website and look to see if they're entitled to more money than perhaps they're receiving from the state.
11:12And I use the word entitled. It's not a case of people grabbing more money because they can.
11:18It's money that they should know that they can receive anyway.
11:20So they can get things like council tax reductions.
11:22They can get things like pension credit, which helps helps older people get by if money is running short.
11:30And it can help them with things like universal credit.
11:32It's an easy to fill out questionnaire on our website.
11:38And it will alert us to the fact that people are looking to possibly have a need that we can help them with.
11:48Now time for a quick break, but we'll be coming back in just a few minutes for more news made just for Kent.
11:52Don't go anywhere.
11:53Keep going anywhere.
11:55We'll be there.
11:56Bye.
11:58Coming back in just a moment.
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16:53Here is our reporter, Kristen Hawthorne.
16:55Thank you for joining us here this evening.
16:59What is this all about then, Kristen?
17:01What more can you tell us?
17:02Yeah.
17:02So, like you said, this is all to do with the path leading up to the Hamshades Bridge.
17:06The path serves hundreds of people, the path serves hundreds of people a day that go to the Whitstable School and the Sweetcliffe Primary School.
17:15Sarah Simmons, who launched the campaign to get a safer crossing says she doesn't want it to be dismissed as just a mum problem.
17:25She says this is a community problem and it's about the children really and the parents that have to use it every day.
17:31They often have to go around, you know, if people are walking, they have to go around them, leading them to go on to the path and face oncoming traffic.
17:39There was also even an incident where a baby was knocked out of their pram after being hit.
17:45Luckily, it was unscathed, but, you know, we never know when this could happen again and it could be a lot more serious.
17:49And what solutions have been proposed by some of the residents?
17:53We saw some pictures of them on the screen now.
17:55What ideas have they got to fix this at all?
17:57Yes.
17:58So, they have floated several potential solutions, one being a new pedestrian bridge over another section of the railway line or a path through the nearby allotments.
18:09See, the thing is that makes it kind of difficult is the fact that the current bridge is owned by National Rail.
18:15So, it's not as simple as a council fix because National Rail would need to be involved as well.
18:21So, there's lots of complications when it comes to this?
18:23Certainly, yes.
18:25Yes.
18:25One of them is, well, I mean, when Sarah raised the issues in 2020, she was dismissed by the council saying they said it was very difficult to prioritise the location due to the number of reported crashes.
18:40But she says, you know, we shouldn't have to wait until something serious happens for this to change.
18:44Significant changes are unlikely without widening the bridge structure, which would require National Rail's agreement.
18:52They've come back and they said that they will try and fix this eventually, but there's a lot to it, really.
19:00Christa, thank you so much for bringing us those details.
19:02Now, don't forget, you can keep up to date with all your latest stories across Kent by logging on to our website, kmtv.co.uk.
19:11There you'll find all our reports, including this one here.
19:15Taking the time to look closer at nature, you may get the chance to see a pollinator feeding on flowers and even crane flies taking flight.
19:23Insects play an important part of our ecosystem, underpinning our food chain, which supports birds, mammals and other wildlife.
19:31But research is showing that their population is declining.
19:35Bugs Matter is a national systems of science survey of flying insect abundance.
19:40Led by the Kent Wildlife Trust in partnership with the invertebrate charity Bug Life.
19:45Volunteers take part by cleaning their number plate ahead of a drive.
19:48Then using the Bug Matter app, they monitor their journey.
19:51Recent data collected showed there were 30% more journeys recorded in 2024 than in 2023.
19:59So when you've finished your journey, you take a photo of the number plate.
20:07Using the virtual splatometer.
20:12You count the number of blood splats.
20:14Enter that in the app.
20:23Say whether it rained or not.
20:25And that's it.
20:26Submit.
20:28And that submits the post-black count along with the journey route.
20:32But the latest data has revealed that the number of insects sampled on a vehicle's number plate across the UK
20:37has fallen by 63% since 2021.
20:41Unfortunately, they are in decline due to all the usual factors that are affecting most biodiversity.
20:47So land cover change, loss of natural habitats, pollution, climate change, you know, all these big drivers of biodiversity loss.
20:57When you consider where, what the terrestrial surface of our planet looked like a few thousand years ago,
21:03we've transformed it from swathes of natural habitat to huge areas of agriculture.
21:09But these small creatures may have a bigger impact than we may think.
21:12Insects and other invertebrates provide a huge number of essential services, I guess you could call them,
21:20which support human life and the life of other animals.
21:24So they do things like they pollinate our crops.
21:28They help to break down waste and recycle nutrients.
21:32And insects are food for other animals.
21:35Lots of birds, lots of fish, lots of mammals feed on insects.
21:39So they provide these services, so these essential parts in the food chains and the functioning of the ecosystems.
21:46But they're also important in their own right.
21:48It is hoped by tracking the bug splats on vehicle number plates,
21:52we will have a better understanding of how their abundance is changing over time.
21:56Daisy Page for KMTV.
21:59Now let's take a quick look at the weather forecast for the coming days.
22:03Well, tonight, partially cloudy in the west side of the county with temperatures raging from 13 to 18 degrees.
22:15Tomorrow morning, cloudy weather across the board with temperatures of 13 and 14 degrees.
22:20Wind speeds hitting 6 miles per hour.
22:22And into the afternoon, cloudy skies staying with us with temperatures being almost universal across the county.
22:2715 degrees with it being slightly warmer over in Dartford.
22:30And this is your Outlook on the screen now.
22:32It's getting up to 19 degrees by the weekend, but cloudy throughout.
22:45And now to Maidstay, where the Borough Council has marked the appointment of its new mayor with a colourful civic parade.
22:52Gurkha soldiers and the Engineer Regiment marched through the town.
22:57And the new mayor, Councillor Martin Roud, made a grand entrance in a horse-drawn chariot.
23:02The tradition has been part of Maidstone for more than 70 years now.
23:06So our reporter, Henry Lark, went down there to soak up this spectacle.
23:10It's that time of year again, time for a new mayor to represent Maidstone Borough Council.
23:18People across Maidstone, including Gurkha armed with bayonets, marched across the town centre to welcome in the new mayor as part of the traditional civic parade that's taken place for over 70 years.
23:34The responsibility of a mayor here in Maidstone Borough Council is to act as an authority figure and represent the council at civic and ceremonial occasions.
23:47And they overlook meetings to make sure everything's running smoothly and regulations are met.
23:53And today's agenda meeting is one of the many that Councillor Martin Roud will be overlooking for the next year.
24:01Councillor Roud, who's been serving the Borough Council since 2014, will soon be included right here on this long list of Maidstone's mayors who have served throughout history.
24:15I am more proud of this being the county town, I am more proud of this being part of Kent, as much as I am proud of the fact that I represent Headcorn, Sutton Vallance, Holcombe, Borough Mallaby, East Sutton, and a very big rural community of many little hamlets and suburbs.
24:38The previous mayor and mayorness were also in attendance to give their blessings for the upcoming year.
24:44I want to thank Martin, sorry, Mr Mayor now. Martin has supported me. We are our friends at any rate and colleagues.
24:55Martin has supported me, a wonderful deputy mayor. He really has supported me.
24:59And you probably may have noticed at council meetings, he'd be my eyes as well, because I can't always see the line here.
25:08And so Martin, Mr Mayor, thank you ever so much for your support. You've really been a marvellous supporter.
25:16Councillor Roud will now serve as mayor until May next year.
25:21Henry Luck for CAME TV in Maidstone.
25:24Now, just before we go, we've got some news which has come through to us just while we're on air.
25:31There's a major incident going on in Gravesend as fire crews are responding to a fire as a block of flats in Gravesend.
25:40There's more information on this on Kent Online. Let's just bring that to you, what we can now.
25:45We now understand seven fire engines have been called to that block of flats in Nursery Grove in Gravesend, where they were called there at around about 3.30.
25:56Kent Online has seen footage of fire, which we're trying to obtain for you right now, of the incident, which shows a block of flats on fire.
26:05It seems to be isolated to one side of the building, but we're trying to get some more information on that for you now.
26:11So you can check out Kent Online for the latest updates throughout the evening.
26:15Police are also in attendance and have been approached with more information and all people have been accounted for.
26:21We also understand that GoFundMe has also been created for one of the flats, which has been on fire this evening.
26:32There may be more information on that story throughout this evening on Kent Online and some of the other stories we've been covering today.
26:38But thank you so much for watching Kent tonight this evening.
26:41There may be more news made just for Kent throughout the evening and we'll be back tomorrow with the Kent Morning Show from 7.
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