Catch up on the latest environmental news from across the county with Abby Hook.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hello and welcome to Kent on Climate live on KMTV.
00:19 I'm Abbey Hook and in this show we discuss
00:21 all things related to environmental issues in the county.
00:24 How is climate change impacting Kent?
00:26 What are communities in the county doing to tackle it
00:28 and how can you help at home?
00:30 Each week we take a deep dive
00:31 into a new environmental issue
00:33 and I'm joined by expert guests.
00:35 In today's show we're talking all things Halloween
00:38 and how to manage your impact on the environment
00:40 this spooky season.
00:42 Why less people are cycling to work
00:44 and also a very special report
00:46 looking into collapsing cliffs in Sheppey.
00:49 But first tonight,
00:50 how is Kent being eco-friendly this Halloween?
00:53 From reducing pumpkin waste,
00:54 reusing old decorations and recycling household items,
00:58 these are just a few ways to be more sustainable
01:01 during this seasonal celebration.
01:03 Creating something spooky from things
01:05 lying around the house
01:06 can help you get into the Halloween spirit
01:08 and also help your budget.
01:09 Well here's Daisy Page
01:11 with some terrifically terrifying tips and tricks.
01:14 (upbeat music)
01:17 - Being eco-friendly at Halloween can be a challenge.
01:22 However, I have a few tips and tricks
01:23 which can help you be more sustainable
01:25 around this seasonal celebration.
01:27 Firstly, why not buy decorations
01:29 that you can store away and use again, like this one.
01:32 Secondly, try and avoid buying plastic.
01:35 Now I know that can be really hard around Halloween,
01:38 so why not try and swap out your plastic bowl
01:40 for one that you can really use again next year.
01:43 And lastly, I'm going to show you
01:45 how you can turn some household items
01:48 into spooky decorations.
01:49 For our first decoration,
01:52 I collected some fallen leaves from my garden.
01:54 However, you can get these from your local park
01:56 or on your daily walk.
01:58 Using a hair tie, I put the leaves to my upcycle jam jar
02:01 to create a seasonal candle holder.
02:03 And I added a bit of twine and placed a light inside
02:07 to finish the final look.
02:09 Instead of carving my pumpkin,
02:10 I am painting it to make it last longer.
02:13 And so I can create a soup
02:14 once I'm finished with it being a decoration.
02:17 If you do carve your pumpkin,
02:18 instead of using bleach to preserve it,
02:20 why not try lemon?
02:21 By painting my pumpkin,
02:23 I found I also had space for two faces.
02:27 And finally, some twine, a pen,
02:28 and some old paper bags from my shopping.
02:30 I have created a super spooky banner to put in my home.
02:34 You can also try to cut out some ghosts,
02:35 bats, or pumpkin shapes.
02:37 Be creative with it.
02:38 But it's not only decorations you can make at home.
02:42 Local eco groups say you can stay spooky
02:45 while caring for the climate at the same time.
02:48 When it comes to things like lanterns and pumpkins,
02:51 it's important that we try and work out
02:52 where they've come from, are they locally sourced?
02:55 What can we do with them?
02:56 Can we make sure we make soups and pies out of them?
02:58 And what do we do with them at the end?
02:59 So we can't just throw them in the rubbish
03:01 'cause they contribute towards carbon emissions,
03:04 but equally we're encouraged now
03:06 to perhaps find a local wildlife rescue or compost them.
03:10 Other ideas could include borrowing
03:12 and swapping children's costumes.
03:15 There's loads that kick around at secondhand charity shops.
03:18 But also have a look locally what there are
03:21 that you can do to support local wildlife events.
03:24 So there are things like bat walks
03:26 or spider hunts or things like that.
03:28 So kind of looking at framing it more
03:30 of a kind of autumnal celebration
03:32 as opposed to necessarily doing things
03:34 the way they've always been done.
03:35 Even like the sweets,
03:36 if you're gonna be buying sweets for the kids,
03:38 perhaps just try and look for a gelatin-free option
03:40 as opposed to just kind of buying the same old sweet.
03:42 So they're little tweaks, they're nothing major,
03:45 and there's still a great opportunity to go out and have fun.
03:48 So how will you be sustainably spooky this Halloween?
03:51 Daisy Page for KMTV.
03:54 Well, Daisy's finished all her crafts
03:58 and joins me in the studio now.
04:00 Daisy, were you surprised with what you could create
04:03 when you actually put your mind to it
04:04 and looked at what you've just had in your house?
04:06 Yeah, so I was really surprised,
04:09 but the main thing I was surprised about
04:10 is that how these things could also be used
04:13 for different seasons, like the leaf candle holder.
04:16 I can actually just compost the leaves
04:17 and then bring that back out
04:19 and put something a different season on it.
04:21 What I also found is using things from my garden.
04:25 Like I said, you can find these in local parks
04:27 or if you're out on a walk.
04:29 But I just like to leave a reminder
04:31 of being mindful for nature
04:32 as they'll be using a lot of this stuff
04:34 during fall as well.
04:35 You can see some of your pieces on the screen,
04:39 actually your painted pumpkin,
04:40 but also you've got this one here too.
04:42 Now this is something that you actually made yourself?
04:45 Yeah, so I made that at a local pottery shop.
04:48 We've had it for a few years now.
04:50 We put it away every year.
04:51 It's got an electric candle that just stays inside of it.
04:54 We find it easier than buying a candle every year,
04:56 melting it, burning it,
04:57 than each year having to buy a new one.
04:59 Whereas this, we can store it away
05:01 and then just bring it out every year.
05:02 And something a lot of people do is Christmas decorations.
05:05 You put them away, you use them again next year.
05:07 But perhaps we should start thinking for Halloween
05:09 in that sort of similar way.
05:11 Also, it's really quite accessible
05:13 and more cost-effective, I suppose,
05:14 especially during a cost of living crisis
05:17 where budgets are really pinched.
05:19 How sort of accessible did you find it financially?
05:22 Yeah, so this whole report or project, shall we say,
05:25 only cost me two pound,
05:26 and that was from buying the pumpkin.
05:28 And I brought this at a farm,
05:29 so I'm sure you can shop around
05:30 and find lots of different prices.
05:32 And that's even if you want a pumpkin,
05:33 I'm sure you can create something at home.
05:36 As we all know, it's the holidays this week as well,
05:38 and it's a great way to be creative
05:40 with your children around.
05:41 Some other tips, you don't have to just follow mine.
05:44 I'm sure if you have a search, there's hundreds online.
05:46 But I also saw a really fun one
05:47 of turning yoghurt pots into little ghosts,
05:49 and I'm sure everyone has a yoghurt pot
05:51 lying around somewhere.
05:52 I suppose just turn them upside down,
05:54 drew a few eyes on it.
05:55 Yeah, well, if you paint inside,
05:57 yeah, if you paint inside,
05:59 then you don't get wet hands on the outside either,
06:01 which I thought was very clever.
06:02 Very sensible.
06:03 You are the craft expert, Daisy.
06:05 There's also some concerns about the pumpkin,
06:08 with the pumpkins, for wildlife too.
06:10 Just very quickly,
06:10 could you explain some of those key concerns?
06:12 Yeah, so pumpkins are not typically found in the woods.
06:16 So a lot of people around Halloween,
06:18 there's an increased scene
06:19 of people disposing of them in there.
06:22 Obviously, this is not a natural food.
06:24 Whilst it can be tasty for some animals,
06:26 it can actually be dangerous for others,
06:27 such as hedgehogs, it can make them unwell.
06:29 So just be mindful, research,
06:31 and find how to dispose of them properly.
06:33 Amazing, Daisy.
06:34 Well, you'll be back again next week
06:35 with how to de-Halloween eco-friendly too.
06:38 But we've also been asking people in Rochester
06:40 what they think the impact Halloween can have
06:43 on our environment.
06:44 Let's take a look.
06:45 Thinking back to when I was a child,
06:48 we used, we didn't have pumpkins, we had potatoes.
06:53 So we had things that were not necessarily wasted
06:57 or things that were not necessarily,
06:59 would end up in landfill for many years to come.
07:03 I'm very aware of the impact over Halloween.
07:05 There's a lot of, specifically,
07:07 things to do with sweet wrappers
07:09 and the amount of plastic in Halloween decorations.
07:12 There's so much of it,
07:13 and we should definitely find a way
07:15 to decrease the plastic output
07:18 and make more environmentally friendly
07:20 and reusable Halloween decorations and costumes.
07:23 'Cause all the sweets are all individually
07:24 wrapped in plastic, aren't they?
07:26 Maybe if they stopped selling them in plastic
07:29 or giving away something different.
07:31 Costumes, decorations, kind of tat, basically.
07:38 I can imagine that it's something big,
07:41 'cause there's always this really cheap stuff
07:45 that you could buy and throw after the holiday is over.
07:50 And yeah, I can imagine that's a lot of waste.
07:55 Obviously paper packaging,
07:58 or just giving the kids a bit of coal or a bit of fruit.
08:01 I don't think I'd be too happy about that.
08:04 But yeah, I suppose speaking to manufacturers
08:06 and getting them to change their packaging, to be fair.
08:09 - Well, be sure to let us know over on our socials
08:11 how you're being green this Halloween.
08:13 Send in all your pictures,
08:14 and they can feature in next week's Kent on Climate.
08:17 But next tonight, areas in Kent are among the lowest ranked
08:21 for people cycling to work in the country.
08:23 A study on the latest ONS figures
08:25 shows that commuting cyclists
08:26 make up just 0.8% of the population nationally.
08:30 Sevenoaks is ranked ninth lowest,
08:32 and Medway ranked 35th
08:34 out of more than 300 local authorities.
08:37 But just why are the figures so low here in the county?
08:40 Well, Bartholomew Hall has been finding out.
08:43 - Just under 8,000 people cycle to work here in Kent.
08:47 That's according to the latest figures
08:49 from the Office for National Statistics.
08:51 Based on how many cyclists there are per 1,000 people,
08:54 the data shows an east-west divide in the county.
08:57 Those commonly known as commuter towns
08:59 sit amongst the lowest in Kent for people cycling to work.
09:03 Whilst lower than any city,
09:05 Medway and Sevenoaks rank amongst the lowest in the country,
09:09 with just 1.99 and 2.86 people cycling
09:12 per every 1,000 commuters.
09:15 Compared with the rest of the country,
09:17 Merthyr Tydfil in Wales
09:19 ranked as the overall lowest local authority area,
09:22 and Cambridge was the highest, with more than 75 people.
09:25 It's clear from this data
09:26 that Kent sits well below the UK average
09:29 over people who cycle to work.
09:31 - Apart from just cycling to work,
09:33 there's a lot of carbon emission we are emitting into the air.
09:37 It's not just affecting the person standing by the roadside,
09:41 it's also affecting you that is also driving that car
09:44 or any other means of transportation that you're taking.
09:47 - This is Matt, who runs his company, All Bikes Servicing,
09:51 from his home garage in Chatham.
09:52 And even he says that he wouldn't choose to cycle to work
09:55 if he had to go elsewhere in the area.
09:57 - You know, I've been cycling all my life.
10:00 It's great to get out in the fresh air.
10:03 It clears your mind.
10:04 You know, it's just a pleasant situation.
10:07 When I used to work in Gillingham,
10:09 which is the closest I ever worked in my life,
10:11 which I think it was about 4.2 miles,
10:13 and I'd do a 12-hour day, and cycling to work,
10:16 do a 12-hour day, and then thinking about cycling home
10:19 wasn't a great prospect for me personally.
10:21 And I get that with a lot of people.
10:23 But I think Medway really,
10:24 bearing in mind where it is based,
10:28 you know, with regards to London and them sort of areas,
10:31 I think a lot of people tend to get on the train
10:33 and commute that way.
10:34 - With the benefits of cycling for your health,
10:37 for the environment, and for your pocket clear,
10:39 why is it that in an area like Medway,
10:41 the numbers are so low,
10:43 especially when there's more than 80 miles
10:45 of cycling routes through all five towns?
10:47 Well, we've been asking those who live here
10:49 if they'll consider cycling to work.
10:52 - I would, but I think there definitely needs
10:54 to be an improvement in cycling facilities,
10:57 well, around here, but generally through the country.
11:00 - When I worked in Medway,
11:02 I cycled to work most days anyway,
11:04 'cause I was near enough to do that.
11:06 And if I needed the car,
11:08 we used to cycle home and pick it up.
11:10 - I do cycle a lot, and I would cycle to work
11:13 if I think it's safe, and I don't think it is very safe,
11:16 no matter where we are in the UK.
11:18 - So with some considering taking up two wheels
11:20 and others happy sticking with four,
11:22 it seems Kent's cycling stats are yet to hit top gear.
11:26 Bartholomew Hall for KMTV.
11:29 Well, would you cycle to work?
11:30 Let us know over on our socials, KMTVKent.
11:33 Well, that's all from me this week,
11:35 but coming up right after the break,
11:36 we have a special from the Isle of Sheppey,
11:39 looking into residence homes that have collapsed off cliffs.
11:42 We found out what can be done to stop the ground
11:44 they're building their lives on
11:46 from slipping from beneath their feet.
11:48 All that and more after this very short break.
11:50 I'll be back again next week, but don't go anywhere,
11:52 and enjoy this very special episode.
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15:08 Hello and welcome to this Kent Tonight special.
15:29 Now, what lengths would you go to stop your home from collapsing off a cliff?
15:33 This is the question that the residents of a coastal community on the Isle of Sheppey have been faced with.
15:39 With no plans to shore up the stretch of coast they live on,
15:42 their homes at East Church Gap are at risk of collapsing with the cliffs.
15:46 So what options do they have?
15:48 Well, tonight we'll hear how this community is attempting to shore up their homes
15:51 and why nature's been left to run its course on this stretch of Sheppey.
15:55 Our reporter Patrick Hughes has been to meet some of the residents.
15:59 On the northern coast of the Isle of Sheppey,
16:02 a small community have faced some of the most dramatic consequences of coastal erosion in recent years.
16:08 In June 2020, then resident Emma Tullett was forced to flee with her children
16:13 after a collapse of the cliff edge sent her home tumbling toward the shore.
16:17 Several of her neighbours were evacuated and forced to spend months in temporary accommodation.
16:23 Three years on and the people of Surf Crescent worry that any day they could be next.
16:28 I went there to find out what it's like living on the edge.
16:32 One resident, Steve Staples, told me that he and his wife are sick with fear every day,
16:37 but that they have nowhere else to go.
16:39 We've got two suitcases packed ready to go
16:42 and all our paperwork, our documents and our passports all in a bag
16:46 hanging on the back of the bedroom door.
16:49 So if anything happens we can get out quickly.
16:52 So what keeps you here? Why have you decided to stay here?
16:55 Well I've got no mortgage. I'm retired now.
16:59 How am I going to find somewhere else?
17:02 They won't give me no money for this house.
17:04 No one's going to buy it.
17:07 So I'm stuck.
17:08 When you bought it did they give you...
17:10 A hundred years. I had it a minimum of a hundred years.
17:14 I had a surveyor come round and said, "Yeah, you're safe for at least a hundred years here."
17:18 I mean if the house does go, like you say, you're retired, what would you do then?
17:22 I don't know. I really don't know.
17:26 Live in a caravan I suppose.
17:30 Because the council wouldn't give you anything for your house.
17:32 No one would help you.
17:33 I don't think the insurance would pay you out either.
17:36 And after a series of field appeals for help to the local council,
17:39 several of the residents have taken controversial steps
17:42 to secure what they see as the future of their homes.
17:45 One of those people is Ed Kean, who has spent ÂŁ18,000 of his retirement pot
17:50 literally buying time by paying to dump construction waste
17:54 in an attempt to shore up the cliffs.
17:56 When did you start getting involved in trying to build the Smith bag up?
18:00 When the house went.
18:03 And it started coming back towards my house.
18:06 And the council said they had no money to do any sea defences or anything.
18:10 So we had to do it ourself.
18:12 It's not just me. One house has gone. I'll be next.
18:18 There's 50 little houses around here. So it's 50 dwellings.
18:21 It affects 50 people.
18:24 But he and his fellow residents have since received a legal stop order
18:28 from Swale Borough Council to cease all works,
18:30 on the grounds that they were illegally tipping waste and contaminating the area.
18:35 That means for those living in Surf Crescent,
18:37 they're forced to return to doing all that they can do -
18:40 watching and waiting.
18:42 And Patrick joins me now.
18:44 Patrick, we heard from a few of the residents in that report there,
18:46 but you did spend three days with the broader community of Surf Crescent.
18:50 How are they feeling about this issue now?
18:53 Well, as we heard from that package just now, there's a lot of fear still there.
18:57 I mean, Steve told me, we saw he and his wife are just worried sick.
19:01 He told me when I was there that his wife is losing a lot of sleep over this kind of thing.
19:05 They have two bags packed ready to go at any time.
19:08 And along with that, there's a real sense of frustration,
19:11 almost a sense of abandonment from this community
19:13 that they've really been left to fend for themselves.
19:15 And although a lot of people were really happy to talk to us when we came there,
19:18 there was a lot of resistance too.
19:20 I mean, one man told me that media crews had been there, you know, seven days a week,
19:25 almost 24 hours a day when this first happened three years ago
19:28 when Emmett Hull's house fell off the cliff.
19:30 And after talking to them again and again,
19:33 and not seeing any progress being made on this issue,
19:35 they just really didn't see a point in talking to media anymore.
19:38 They didn't feel like that publicity was helping them in any way.
19:42 But at the same time, there's a lot of resilience in this community.
19:45 You know, when I was talking to Steve on his terrace,
19:47 he just kept telling me about why wouldn't you live here?
19:50 I mean, look at the view.
19:51 And they love living there and that's really clear.
19:54 And they just want to get some help and have some progress made on this issue.
19:59 And we also heard in your package about the concerns about the tipping
20:03 that the residents have been engaged in.
20:05 What are the broader concerns about that issue?
20:08 So, I mean, there are a few sides to this.
20:10 Sweelburgh Council themselves say that because these residents...
20:13 The Sweelburgh Council say that these residents
20:15 were trying to rebuild the road there
20:17 and that this constitutes a planning application,
20:20 but they haven't made that planning application.
20:22 And so they've put in that stop order because it's a legal development.
20:25 At the same time, the Environment Agency in June of this year,
20:30 they put a restriction order down.
20:31 And yeah, they've blocked off that site because of environmental concerns.
20:35 Thank you, Patrick.
20:37 Well, more of your time on the Isle of Sheppey now.
20:40 This time asking what options there are for the residents of Surf Crescent.
20:44 Peter MacDonald was formerly a councillor at Sweelburgh Council
20:48 and has recently been re-elected.
20:49 He says he's fighting to change the government's approach to managing the cliffs.
20:54 Much of the northern coastline of Sheppey falls under a zone of no active intervention.
20:58 Simply put, that means let nature take its course.
21:01 In late 2020, the council did vote to change that policy to one of protection.
21:07 But Peter says that progress has since thawed.
21:09 But now that he's back in the council,
21:12 he's determined to see progress on that policy change
21:15 and on his plan to slow the decline of the coastline using a seawall.
21:19 And I'm determined to see that we've some progress comes to
21:22 our poor island, which is being washed away.
21:25 On the seaward side, we want to put some wooden groins in
21:28 and then some dredgings.
21:30 And we have got already agreement from the Maritime Agency to bring in
21:35 ballast that would have sunk down at the end of the ice age.
21:38 The whole project will be just over a million pounds now.
21:42 Gordon Henderson, amped for sitting board in Sheppey,
21:46 also lives on the island and has been raising the issue for over a decade.
21:49 One of the problems that those residents face is that they purchase their properties
22:00 knowing that there is likely they would lose their homes.
22:04 Sadly, some of those people bought their homes thinking that they would have
22:11 perhaps 40 years worth of uses of them.
22:15 Now, that's not to say that I have no sympathy.
22:18 I have a lot of sympathy with the people that live there.
22:20 And I very much hope that something can be done.
22:23 And I believe that something can be done.
22:27 He says whether a plan to save the cliffs would work or not
22:30 doesn't matter because of one glaring issue.
22:32 Sadly, Natural England have made clear that they, to me, that they will
22:38 oppose any proposal to stop the erosion of the cliffs.
22:44 But how much time could a few groins and gibbons buy?
22:46 KNTV approached Natural England for a statement.
22:50 They told us these cliffs are geographically the most extensive section
22:54 of London clay in Britain.
22:57 And for natural erosion of the cliffs exposes fossils
23:00 which inform our scientific understanding of the ancient environment in which they lived.
23:05 And therefore, it's important that natural processes are allowed to continue
23:11 so that the scientific value of the SSSI
23:15 is maintained for the present and future generations.
23:19 I approached independent coastal erosion expert,
23:21 Professor Derek Jackson of the University of Ulster, to get his thoughts
23:25 on the plan for the seawall.
23:26 Engineering structures are almost a part-time solution.
23:29 You will have to upgrade them.
23:30 They will degrade over time.
23:32 Climate change is really changing the picture and the scene here.
23:36 Are there any other kinds of solutions that you prefer more personally?
23:40 There are options that some people are beginning to think outside the box a little bit,
23:45 particularly in the US, where government have looked at
23:50 almost a managed retreat solution,
23:52 where they try to manage the coastline as it moves back.
23:56 In that case, they actually buy the properties that are under imminent danger
24:00 or future danger.
24:02 They take those properties, they buy them out and they relocate people.
24:05 Patrick, we heard from the MP Gordon Henderson there
24:09 that Natural England would oppose any intervention on these cliffs.
24:13 It's worth us unpacking that a little bit more.
24:15 Why would they be against interventions on this site?
24:18 It's an interesting one.
24:20 So first we have to start with the site itself.
24:22 It has a SSSI status.
24:23 That's a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
24:26 And Natural England has given it that designation
24:28 because they say it's one of the largest stretches of London clay in Britain
24:33 and that it's home to a lot of interesting fossils
24:36 that they want to preserve for their scientific value,
24:38 for researchers, scholars, etc.
24:40 Now, part of that is that they want to allow the coastal erosion itself to proceed.
24:47 The coastal erosion has its own status within this SSSI status.
24:52 And any interference with that erosion means
24:55 that people won't be able to study these fossils and things like that.
24:58 Now, when I spoke to Gordon Henderson, the MP,
24:59 he has a very different take on the matter.
25:02 He told me that he thinks that this status itself is illogical
25:05 because he feels that these fossils will be washed into the sea anyway
25:08 when the cliffs erode.
25:09 And he told me that, in his opinion, it was a real shame
25:13 that the government were placing these scientific commodities and values
25:18 and fossils above people's homes and lives.
25:20 Yeah.
25:23 And we also heard from Councillor Peter MacDonald
25:26 and he was talking a little bit about how the Swellborough Council
25:29 had previously voted to change that non-intervention status
25:33 that's currently across the cliffs.
25:35 Where are we at with that vote?
25:38 So, yeah, this happened in late November of 2020.
25:42 The Council did vote to try to change the policy
25:45 from one of non-intervention to one of protection.
25:48 But the Council themselves don't actually have that authority.
25:50 They have to consult with relevant authorities,
25:52 which there are a number of those,
25:54 and the most relevant is the South East Coastal Group.
25:57 And the Council have consulted with these authorities
26:00 and they say that they have come back with the evidence
26:04 and they've looked at the evidence and they think that there is
26:07 enough evidence there to continue with this non-intervention status
26:10 and there isn't enough evidence to change it to one of protection.
26:13 But at the same time, they say that they're still considering their options,
26:15 they're still exploring their options.
26:16 So really, it's a matter of watching this space.
26:18 Probably not the outcome that the residents would have hoped for their community.
26:27 But, well, thank you very much for watching this Kent Tonight special
26:31 about coastal erosion on the Isle of Sheppey.
26:34 That's all from us today.
26:35 There is more news from across the county throughout the evening.
26:39 Goodbye.
26:39 [Music]