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Catch up with all your latest news from across the county with Kristin Hawthorne.
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00:21Hello and welcome to Kent Tonight Live on KMTV. I'm Kristen Hawthorne and here are your top
00:27stories on Monday the 13th of July. Road rage as Ashford parents call for bus
00:33service over school traffic fares. It's not going to be long until there's an
00:37accident and some child's going to get hurt. A new investment, Southeast Water
00:41showcases new £50 million water treatment facility. Infrastructure
00:46investment does take time to put in place we are trying to do that as quickly and
00:49as efficiently as we can and things will start to improve year on year. And thank
00:54you for the music. Annual Classical Leeds Castle Concert hosts its final
00:58celebration. It's the end of an era but also they're always great concerts so I'm
01:03determined not to let any sad emotions creep into what is a fabulous night.
01:19Parents in Ashford have launched a petition demanding a bus service to a
01:23local school over fears their children could be hurt getting there in the
01:27morning or in the afternoon. Chilmington Green School is part of an
01:30uncompleted housing estate and is more than half an hour from the time proper.
01:35But while Kent County Council say there is a safe route there and back, our local
01:39democracy reporter Ollie Leader has learned that there's more to this than on
01:42the surface. Chilmington Green School has a lot going for it. A good Ofsted report, a
01:48sleek modern building. There is one big problem for parents though. The school is
01:55in the middle of nowhere and there's no bus links to get here. I think it's a bit
01:59silly really because they haven't sorted out any of the roads or anything like
02:02that around here like for the children to have bus stops or to have a bus come
02:07through here. It's dangerous. It's not going to be long until there's an
02:11accident and some child's going to get hurt. Without public transport options,
02:15children have to make their own way back to Ashford despite nearby 40 mile per
02:21hour traffic. I've had loads of emails and I've had contact with different
02:25parents who send the children here. We've all been worried about the route that
02:29the children are going to have to take. And today I'm here on behalf of my
02:32residents. I think it's not acceptable that that room is, you know, legally deemed
02:37safe. But if that was my child, I wouldn't be happy with that. They're working on grass
02:40verges in 41 hour zones. It's not just the nearby fast roads either. This public
02:47footpath, just a hop, skip and a jump from the school gates, has no street
02:52lighting. That means pupils could be walking home in the dark here during the
02:58winter. Highways and roads are the responsibility of Kent County Council and
03:03it says there is a safe route between Ashford and the school, despite hundreds
03:08signing an online petition calling for a bus service to be introduced. We have to
03:14make sure that she's driven here because there's no way the safe walking route is
03:18safe for her to get here. I would never let any child walk that route. It was
03:22nearly three miles long. It was pitch black dark. We did it of an evening and it
03:26was pitch black dark through fields. There was no paths. The school was not
03:31designed to be isolated for long. All of these surrounding fields are supposed to
03:35be filled with thousands of houses in the coming years. Well, that was until the
03:41site's developers folded just a few months ago. KCC says the money for local
03:47transport would have been provided by them. And with no local operators currently
03:53planning to run a service, it appears both the development and the school bus have
03:59hit a roadblock. Ollie Leda at Shilmington Green.
04:05The death of former Maidstone MP and television personality Anne Whittacombe, her death could
04:13be an act of terrorism. Whittacombe, who represented the Maidstone constituency for 23 years, was
04:19discovered at her home in Devon on Thursday, though police now believe that she's been killed
04:24the day before. Counter-terrorism police are now leading the investigation into your alleged murder
04:29after they say more information and evidence has come to light. Maidstone Borough Council has opened
04:35a digital book of condolence and is inviting the community to sign. We spoke to Stuart Jeffery,
04:40the council leader, earlier today. Anne was quite obviously a very large part of the community in
04:50Maidstone. She was highly regarded for her constituency work, i.e. helping people in the
04:57community with specific issues. And she was seen a lot and interacted a lot with the people
05:05of Maidstone. So people had a lot of respect for her.
05:10A man has been charged with murder after a body was found in a suitcase in Rochester. Police were called
05:16to Borstall Recreation Ground on Friday as part of a murder investigation being led by the Met. It came
05:22after two men aged 27 and 32 were arrested at Medway Police Station. We are joined now live by Joe
05:29Crosley, a reporter at Kent Online who attended the scene in person. Joe, what was it like down at the
05:34site when you were there this weekend?
05:36Joe Crosley, what was it like down at the site when you were there this weekend?
05:37Yes, so when I arrived, it took me a minute to actually find the police cordons. They kind of
05:44tucked away in sort of almost the alleyways of the park, which are kind of like next to two lines
05:51of
05:52trees. So yeah, it took me a minute. And when I first pulled up, I saw children playing in the
05:59play
05:59park, which was right next to where I parked and a group of kids basically playing football. So it was
06:06a bit surreal to then quickly walk up and find the police cordons and see police searching for what I'd
06:13imagine are clues into this case. So yeah, surreal more than anything.
06:19Yeah, very surreal and quite dramatic scenes there as well as you described. What do we know so far?
06:25Yeah, so at the moment, the Met have released quite a bit of information about this case. They start off
06:32by saying that on Thursday around about 11pm, they were called to a property in Wandsworth, which is in
06:38London, to basically reports of probable murder. They attended that property and found that there
06:50was no one inside, but they did find signs that someone had come to harm there. The following day,
06:55they were told by Kent Police that two men had arrived at Medway Police Station. From there,
07:02they went to Borstall Recreation Grounds and the two men were arrested. The two men have been charged,
07:10as you say, and when the police went to the recreation ground, they found the remains of Dale Mundell in
07:19a suitcase, which is obviously very grim scenes.
07:24Did you speak to any residents in the area when you were there? I mean, trying to get a bit
07:28of a reaction
07:29by what people think about this, this incident?
07:32Yes, I went door knocking in Short's Way, which is literally just off the back of the park,
07:39and spoke to probably half a dozen, maybe a dozen residents in the area. The main kind of feeling is
07:46of
07:47surprise that something like this has happened, but also kind of confusion. I mean, Wandsworth is a hell of a
07:53long
07:53way away from Rochester, and that is the main source of kind of, as I say, confusion for residents. They
08:00don't really understand how this has happened, but there's also surprise. I mean, seeing dozens of
08:07police officers show up outside near where you live is quite something that not a lot of us go through,
08:13to be totally honest. So to see that must have been quite shocking for them, and that's definitely
08:18something they relate to me. Yeah, definitely. Thanks so much, Jo.
08:25South East Water has invested £50 million in a new water treatment facility to help improve Kent's
08:31water resilience in the future. But after multiple outages and leaks across the county, and an ongoing
08:37hose pipe ban, will these investments make a difference to residents in the area? Our reporter
08:41Nayla Mohamed has been finding out. This is South East Water's new treatment facility in Ellsford.
08:47A multi-million pound investment that the company says will help secure suppliers for the future,
08:53even as thousands of customers remain under a hose pipe ban. And I got a sneak peek inside.
09:00Now you might be wondering why I'm wearing this high-verse jacket. Well right now I'm inside South East
09:06Water's brand new £50 million investment water treatment facility, part of a long-term investment plan
09:13to improve water resilience across Kent. But will a facility like this actually make a difference to
09:19those thousands of customers who experience water loss and shortages the past few months? What we've
09:24done here is just one part of a jigsaw of the investment and the resilience improvements that we
09:29need. Because what we need to be able to do is to be able to supply customers from more than
09:32one
09:33treatment works or from more than one network, so that if we have problems or events or interruptions in
09:37one area, customers don't see an interruption to supply, we can just reroute the water to a different
09:41part of the network. And why should customers trust what you say? There's a host of bands going on at
09:46the moment. We are in this period and this time of weather extreme and they do put infrastructure
09:50under stress. So I'm sure that the investment that we've got is going to improve that, but it is a
09:54challenging operating environment and hopefully by demonstrating what we are doing, customers can
09:58get the confidence that we are trying to put things right. This facility treats water that comes
10:03straight from the ground, so it's safe for people to consume when it comes out of their taps. It's
10:08estimated that it will pump out the equivalent of 250,000 bathtubs a day, but only to the local area
10:14around Ellsford. And over their five-year plan, they say they will invest £2.1 billion in
10:21infrastructure to strengthen the county's water resilience. That includes resilience for the
10:26Tumbridge Wells area, upgrading and modernising the treat works in the areas that supply that region,
10:30and this butler is part of that wider package. But you talk about resilience there and customers,
10:34when they think of resilience or they understand resilience, they don't look at investment
10:38announcements. They look at whether or not water is coming out of the tap, which it hasn't been.
10:41Why should customers trust that this will be a major turning point after the recent failures
10:45they've been experiencing? It's been a really tough time for our customers,
10:48and we're really sorry about that. It's not the level of service we want to give. We are doing
10:52short-term resilience and short-term changes to make sure that we can mitigate any issues in the
10:56short-term, improve our response. But that's why infrastructure investment does take time to put
11:01in place. We are trying to do that as quickly and as efficiently as we can, and things will start
11:05to
11:05improve year on year. The host pipe ban is still in place in Ellsford and other areas around Kent.
11:10So while South East Water says that future investments are about preparing for future demand
11:15and unpredictable weather, for customers still unable to water their gardens,
11:20this long-term investment may offer little immediate relief. Naila Mahamud for KMTV in Ellsford.
11:29Unfortunately, that's all we have for this part of the show, but we'll be back in just a few minutes
11:33for more. What we've got coming up, we'll be chatting about an investigation into holiday fraud.
11:38So if you're booking a holiday to get away from the weather that's too hot, you might want to
11:43double think. So you can come back and look at that and find out more. We'll see you then. Bye
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15:09Hello and welcome back to Kent Tonight Live here on KMTV.
15:13One of our colleagues at Kent Online has been busy conducting a fraud investigation
15:17on people being scammed booking holiday villas online.
15:22Reporter Dee Lukasik joined us last week to discuss the process and what she found ahead
15:27of the article being published today.
15:30Five of them, five families, they wanted to go on holidays to Tenerife, that was a few years
15:37ago and they booked a hotel through Expedia, not a hotel, a villa in Tenerife and they were
15:46supposed to pay $2,500 but close up to the day they wanted to ask some questions about what
15:56is there. I think it was about towers or something like that. And they didn't receive a reply so
16:04they tried again and again and then eventually they contacted the company and well first they
16:11started looking online and they realized that that villa may not exist. So they contacted the
16:18company and the company says yeah the villa is not there anymore. So they had to book another villa
16:25for £500 more and yeah they went there, they went for the address of the previous villa and they saw
16:35it's been abandoned for quite some time. So when I heard that story and later I came across a report
16:44from Action Fraud that £11 million families are losing every year.
16:52Why did you decide to do this investigation?
16:57Because I wanted to prove how easy it is to open a listing, to put the fake
17:04house or fake villa or fake apartment for rent on those companies. So I wanted to check,
17:12I've heard there's not only this family was affected but I've heard there was many,
17:17many more families affected. So I wanted to check how easy is it.
17:21And how easy is it? Did you find that out?
17:25Yes, actually I did. But first I sent email to two companies, Booking.com and VRBO and asked them
17:34for the comments. I said I'm doing a story about how about the scams, about the frauds and I was
17:43asking
17:43them for general comments. So they sent me comments that it's very rarely that something like this
17:48happened. The customers are very protected, which actually I prove is not because straight after that
17:58I managed very, very easily to put a fake villa on both of those companies.
18:06And now it's time for all your sports news from across the county.
18:19Jill's manager Gareth Ainsworth has said that striking signing goalkeeper Ollie Wright on loan from
18:25Southampton is a significant coup. The 23 year old has gone well on other league two spells,
18:32picking up awards while at other stadiums. Wright could have stepped up his development with
18:40League One move but chose instead to have another season in their fourth tier. Ainsworth has said
18:46we're very lucky to have someone of this stature and obviously there's big shoes to fill.
18:51New Maidstone United manager Craig Fagan says his new team are showing the kind of attitude he wants.
18:57The side have seen a strong start to their pre-season games with goals from Wrighty Court,
19:03Ken Charles, Ryan Hansen and Trialist in a 4-1 friendly win at home to Welling at the weekend.
19:09While United don't have the budget of other National League South sides, Fagan has said that not
19:15overspending on unsure players is a top priority. He added that we need commitment from everybody and
19:20from what I've seen so far, I think the fans will be happy with the commitment of the players.
19:26Kent Spitfires finished their T20 Blast South group stage campaign with 14 run defeat to
19:32Middlesex at the weekend. You have to bear with me. Luke Holman and Ethan Bosch helped the visitors
19:38post 172-6 while the Spitfires ended 158 runs to 7 wickets. For the Kent side, Daniel Bell Drummond
19:46offered 47 but he and Sam Billings were dismissed in the same over, which proved costly.
19:54Bangladesh is Hassan Mahmood made the first breakthrough trapping Josh Decaires in front,
20:04but in the end it wasn't enough for the Spitfires to return to their run through the competition.
20:08Kent will face off against the North Hampshire Steelbacks in the Canterbury on the 24th of July.
20:17And that's all your latest sports news. Thank goodness we'll have more to come later on Invictus 4 after the
20:23show.
20:32And you can find more stories on kmtv.co.uk, just like this one, about how Kent amputees are coping
20:39in this hot weather.
20:40With another amber heat warning upon us here in Kent, you might be turning on your fan, getting your freezer
20:48stocked with ice cream and even looking forward to sunbathing in your garden.
20:52But for roughly 70,000 amputees across the country, heat waves, which are becoming more frequent in the UK thanks
21:01to climate change, are less about enjoyment and more about endurance.
21:06Summer can be a tough time of the year for those with a limb difference, as the body has a
21:11reduced surface area to evaporate sweat off, which cools the body down.
21:15And this isn't the only challenge.
21:18An amputee, because you're covered in a silicone covering, I mean, this is a slightly different one.
21:26It's meant to be sort of helping in the heat. I'm not sure anything could be that brilliant.
21:31But yeah, I suffer with it a bit, but you just have another glass of water and get on.
21:37But yes, you're absolutely right. You do get that little bit hotter because your natural sweating is not having anywhere
21:44to go.
21:44So you do get a bit hotter. I think over time, your body adapts and just doesn't sweat in the
21:50places where sweat does no good.
21:52Disability Assist is a Maidstone-based charity that helps those across the county live independently with their disabilities.
22:00They're urging residents to look out for each other.
22:03It does actually take an awful lot of effort to be using a prosthetic.
22:10It may be about balance. It might be about coordination.
22:13But when you're trying to focus on all of those things at the same time as doing sort of the
22:19day-to-day tasks that so many people take for granted,
22:24it can just be really exhausting.
22:26And in this hot weather, it's, yeah, it all just piles up, doesn't it?
22:30And you really need to take extra care of yourself.
22:34And I think it's worth communicating with your employer if you're working or the people around you to make sure
22:42that they are aware
22:43and make adaptations or adjustments to what you do to make sure that you get the support that you need
22:52during this time.
22:53It's set to be one of the longest heatwaves since the 1970s.
22:57And as Kent often faces the worst of hotter temperatures,
23:01charities like Disability Assist prove all the more important for those that need them.
23:06Megan Shaw for Kame TV.
23:14Now let's have a look at the weather with all of that in mind.
23:17So tonight will be a mild evening with temperatures at 17 and 18 degrees,
23:21partly cloudy night with wind speeds of 16 miles per hour.
23:23Into tomorrow morning then we've got mainly cloudy skies across the county,
23:27highs there of 21 going up to 27 into the afternoon tomorrow,
23:32wind speeds increasing to 19 degrees.
23:35There are clear skies all over though.
23:37Then we have 26 cloudy skies on Wednesday,
23:39some peaking through again on Thursday, 27 degrees,
23:42and then lowering down to 24 there on Friday.
23:51And finally, a legendary annual festival for Kent has come to an end.
23:56The Leeds Castle Concert celebrated its final boy
23:59as its organisers' heritage events have retired from shows,
24:02as Henry Luck has been finding out.
24:04A nearly 50-year-old tradition has come to an end here at Leeds Castle.
24:11Heritage events, the organisers of the celebration,
24:15have decided to retire from live events,
24:18making this the last annual classical concert at this historic site.
24:25But of course, the event has saved the best until last,
24:30with a night filled with everything from jazz to grand orchestral music.
24:36The first time that we put a Spitfire in the air
24:39and played William Walton's Spitfire Prelude and Few underneath the Spitfire,
24:43I think we did that in about 2002 for the very first time,
24:46and the audience's reaction to that and seeing the Spitfire barrel roll away into the sunset,
24:52just, I'll always remember that moment,
24:54and it's something every year that the audience absolutely loves.
24:56For the bands and audiences here,
24:59every note is filled with a mix of happiness, sadness, and nostalgia.
25:05They're always emotional, these concerts.
25:08They're such extraordinary events.
25:10Yes, tonight will be emotional.
25:12You know, it's the end of an era.
25:13But also, they're always great concerts.
25:16So I'm determined not to let any sad emotions creep into what is a fabulous night.
25:22They're such a fun.
25:24Good time.
25:26Memorable.
25:26Memorable.
25:27Yep.
25:28It's an amazing event.
25:31We've been coming for 10 years.
25:33I'm upset over this because we come every year for years,
25:37and it's what we're going to do now once a year.
25:40I've never been here before.
25:41This was my first year.
25:42I've wanted to come for years and years and years,
25:44and this year I said, you know what,
25:47it's the last year I'm going to go,
25:49and I'm glad I did because you meet some wonderful people.
25:52Do you know, this is the first and obviously last concert I've ever been to,
25:55and I am so impressed so far.
25:58The atmosphere is electric and what a day to be alive.
26:02As you can hear behind me,
26:04the crowds are celebrating
26:05as Leeds Castle has taken its final bow,
26:10bringing an end to a nearly 50-year-old tradition.
26:15But who knows what's in store for the future?
26:20Henry Luck for Kane TV at Leeds Castle.
26:33Wow, what a good way to end the show.
26:35You've been watching Kent Tonight Live on Kane TV.
26:38There's more news made just for you throughout the evening at 8pm.
26:41Thanks so much.
26:41We'll see you then.
26:42Bye-bye.
26:42Bye-bye.
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