- 20/06/2025
Catch up on all the latest news across the county with Finn Macdiarmid.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Kent Tonight, live here on KMTV.
00:25I'm Finn McDermid and here are your top stories on Friday the 20th of June.
00:32Baby Bank, Thanet Family Support Charity sees donations destroyed after warehouse floods.
00:38Handling the Heat, we speak to Kent Fire and Rescue Service about how you can stay safe
00:42during this summer weather.
00:44And Highly Commended, some of KMTV's best documentaries and specials were shortlisted
00:48for the Kent Press and Broadcast Awards, and we'll take a look at them in the show.
00:53First Tonight, baby banks across the country provide struggling families with donated items
00:57to help with the cost of raising children.
00:59The only baby bank in Thanet was recently hit by a devastating flood that meant a lot of
01:04the items had to be thrown away.
01:05And with more people than ever accessing the service, they say it's interrupted their normal
01:10flow of donations.
01:11To find out more, I went down to the warehouse where they keep the items.
01:15All of our stock that was on the floor that had been damaged and contaminated, and what
01:24were we going to do to replace that?
01:27Because it's months, probably years worth of sorting, cleaning and donations being given
01:34to us.
01:35Multiple cots, high chairs and prams, all donated to help struggling families, were completely ruined
01:40after a surprise flood had hit the Thanet warehouse, where Mumma to Mumma, the only baby bank in
01:45the district, keep their items.
01:47And it couldn't have come at a more difficult time.
01:49So yeah, the last three months we've had a 40% increase in referrals and we'd had a flurry
01:54of donations.
01:56So we had clothing, we had cots, we're running a bed poverty campaign at the moment because
02:01we've been so short of cots and families are needing beds for when their children go out
02:05of side beds, they were all on the floor, ready to be put away, and they were all destroyed.
02:11So they've all been written off as contaminated.
02:14So for us it's a tricky time because the big ticket items, the prams, the cots, they're
02:20difficult to get hold of because people hold onto them for a long time.
02:24So this is where we're struggling now because we've got a backup of families already waiting
02:29for cots and the ones that were ready to go have now been destroyed.
02:32Now Mama2Mama is in fact the only baby bank that serves Thanet, one of the most deprived
02:37areas of the county.
02:38And families rely on the service heavily, whether or not they've been re-homed or simply struggle
02:43with their finances.
02:44With the cost of living crisis raising prices, cots and prams can be especially hard for struggling
02:49families to come by.
02:50And it's also rarer to see them donated, meaning when Mama2Mama lost plenty of their cots it hit
02:56them quite hard.
02:57So there's a lot of families, you know, in need of Mama2Mama and the services they offer.
03:04So I think one thing that Jane's noticed as CEO of the organisation is how, you know, there
03:10would be a time when we would be giving the care packages maybe to just mums, families
03:16that might be out of work.
03:17But now we're finding increasingly with the cost of living crisis you might have two parents
03:21working and they're really struggling to provide everything they need.
03:24Mama2Mama say the flood caused an interruption to their normal flow of donations but they're
03:29concerned that it could happen again.
03:31We need funding now to get additional racking so we want to ensure everything's off the floor
03:36because there's nothing wrong with the building but we can't risk another flash flood where
03:41it could happen again and there's no guarantee that it isn't going to happen.
03:45Until they can get that additional funding Thanet's only baby bank hope that their warehouse
03:49can stay dry and their donated items can continue to go to the families who need it the most.
03:54Finn McDermid for KMTV in Thanet.
04:02Now an amber heat health alert has been announced for Kent as forecasts predict temperatures could
04:07reach 34 degrees in some places by the weekend.
04:10While many will be heading to the beach or lighting up the barbecue, the heat does bring serious
04:14safety concerns from accidental fires to the dangers of swimming in open water.
04:19To find out how to stay safe I spoke with James Kirk from Kent Fire and Rescue Service.
04:24Now with this heat on the horizon how can people make sure that they're staying safe while having
04:28some classic summer activities like barbecues or bonfires?
04:32Yes it's a really good question and obviously with the warmer weather here we want to make sure people are having fun and staying safe.
04:40So the warmer weather, drier grounds, we see sort of an increase in fires out in the open and we're just sort of saying to people really if we are going to have those barbecues, we want people to have fun but we want to be able to say, look, make sure it's positioned safely, we're not leaving it unattended, positioning it safely away from property.
05:00Or kind of greenery so there's no risk of fire spread and again just making sure it's not left unattended.
05:09And how can people make sure that they're safely disposing of their barbecues?
05:13Yeah, we do see a rise of those in the summer, which is a really good point.
05:16So if once they've been finished, just making sure that they're completely cooled before they're disposed of will just completely eliminate that risk of a fire starting.
05:25So yeah, they're kind of any disposal then completely cooled down before putting them into the bin.
05:32Also some fires have recently started due to glass paperweights and mirrors with the sun reflecting off of them.
05:38How do you recommend that people avoid those kind of risks?
05:41Yeah, we see a variety of incidents here in campfire and rescue.
05:47So across a variety of areas, we just ask people to stay safe.
05:52So things like objects, as you just described there, just making sure they're not in the way of any kind of windows.
05:58So there's no kind of sun reflection is our key advice.
06:01And along with all our other safety and just to kind of while we're talking about the warmer weather with the warmer weather, we see sometimes people it's quite an attraction to jump into the into what appears to be cool water.
06:15But it's actually can look is actually sorry, colder, a lot colder than it can actually look beneath the surface.
06:21We obviously see there could be potential risks under their tides currents.
06:27So we just want to make sure that people stay safe and and please be cautious around these kind of things this summer.
06:33And do you have any general health advice for people to avoid things like sunstroke or heat exhaustion?
06:39Yeah, what we would ask people is just to look out for your loved ones and your neighbours and take that time to to call in on them just to make sure that they've got plenty of fluid to stay hydrated.
06:51They're keeping cool and they've got all their essential items that they need.
06:54And it's yeah, let's have a really fun, safe summer. But look out for each other.
06:58That's our that's our advice here at Ken Fire and Rescue.
07:00Now keeping that health advice for the hot weather in mind, let's take a look at the forecasts.
07:12Well, tonight looks like clear skies and warm weather with temperatures hitting the high teens and some low wind speeds of five and six miles per hour.
07:19Then into tomorrow morning, temperatures averaging around 24 degrees with clouds scattered across the county.
07:24And in the afternoon, scorching highs of 30 degrees expected at the peak of the day,
07:29much of the same weather expected.
07:31Now for your outlook. Highs of 27 on Sunday.
07:35Some cloud coming in for Monday and Tuesday.
07:37And temperatures getting slightly lower to 23 and 24 degrees.
07:40Now MPs in the House of Commons have today voted in favour of the assisted dying bill, passing it by a majority of 23 votes.
07:55The decision has sparked strong reactions across the country, particularly among those opposing the bill.
08:01During the heated debate in Parliament, some MPs raised serious ethical and practical concerns, including the impact on young people,
08:08individuals with eating disorders and the possibility that vulnerable, terminally ill patients could be offered assisted dying as an alternative to proper care.
08:15Others believe the bill could offer dignity in the final stages of life as long as safeguarding is in place.
08:20The bill will now progress to the House of Lords for further debate before it's potentially passed.
08:25Tunbridge Wells MP Mike Martin, who voted in favour of the bill, spoke to us yesterday.
08:30We need to just put to bed this idea that the bill hasn't had proper scrutiny.
08:34It has had the most enormous amount of parliamentary time and scrutiny.
08:39When we looked at the debate at the principle back in several months ago at second reading, I voted for it then because I was happy for it to pass.
08:49I felt that it was broadly in the right place.
08:51But I knew that the heavy work would be done in committee and at the amendment stage, which is where we are now.
08:57And actually reading both bills, the one that went into the committee and the one that came out of the committee, I think the safeguards have actually been strengthened.
09:08Now, for the 2025 Kent Press and Broadcast Awards, KMTV submitted some of our best documentaries for the Kent Programme of the Year Award.
09:17We didn't end up taking it home, but our special, Albania, Why Do We Go From Here?, was highly commended.
09:23So right after this, you can watch the full documentary. But first, here's a sneak peek of what you can expect.
09:29Is it worth risking your life to come to the UK?
09:33That's a million dollar question.
09:37Independence Day rallies and protests have brought the Albanian community together.
09:41Albania was closed to the rest of the world for 50 years.
09:47In 2022, there were reports published that 12 to 13,000 Albanians were coming to the UK through illegal means. Why is that?
09:55I've arrived in Albania, somewhere I've loved visiting growing up.
09:59But this time, I'll be talking to people about their lives, society and why they want to leave.
10:05There are stories of people who come to the UK because of the life that is seen on social media, and organized criminal gangs uses to traffic young men to work in cannabis farms.
10:28When did you see the future?
10:30How many times did you try to make a difference?
10:32I've tried it for 10 years.
10:36About 10 years?
10:37I was born there.
10:40I got to leave.
10:42I was born there.
10:44I was born there.
10:45It's not my life.
10:48I was born there, and I was here.
10:51I was born there and I said that I was born with the other people who have no way.
10:56I feel like I re-learned everything that I previously knew.
11:07You can watch that full documentary at 5.45 this evening.
11:12Now, you've been watching Kent Tonight live here on KMTV.
11:15There's more news made just for Kent throughout the evening,
11:18including our highly commended documentary, Albania, Why Do We Go From Here?
11:22All about investigating why people are still making the dangerous journey to the UK.
11:26And uncovering why so many look for life elsewhere.
11:29But don't forget, you can always keep up to date with the latest news across your county
11:33by logging on to kmtv.co.uk.
11:36You can also keep us on your social timelines by liking us on Facebook and following us on TikTok.
11:42That's all from me for this evening.
11:43We'll see you very, very soon with more news from around the county.
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