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00:00Hello and welcome to Kent on Climate live on KMTV. I'm Daisy Page and in this show
00:19we discuss all things related to environmental issues in the county. How is climate change
00:24impacting Kent? What are communities in the county doing to tackle it? And how can you
00:29help at home? Each week we will be taking a deep dive into a new environmental issue
00:33in the county and I'll be joined by expert guests. First tonight, plans have been unveiled
00:39to revamp the Geoffrey Harrison Visitor Centre in Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve. The site attracts
00:45millions of visitors every year and is home to over 2,000 species including kingfishers,
00:51bats and glowworms. The refurbishments hope to make a number of improvements to build
00:56and add windows, improve the cafe and retail area and a hireable event space and will be
01:02completed with a decking area seating to observe the surrounding wildlife. While the visitor
01:08centre will be closed from the 15th of December, the wider park will remain open to the public
01:13with the car park closing temporarily. Next tonight, council leaders and activists say
01:20a year-long do not swim order for two Kent beaches will cast a shadow over seaside businesses.
01:25The water quality at both Dimchurch and Dillcastle Beach have been downgraded to poor following
01:31investigations by the Environment Agency. The council hopes the department will review
01:36the rating in a few months' time, especially ahead of the busy spring and summer season.
01:41Local democracy reporter Gabriel Morris has been down to the coast to get the reaction.
01:48It's one of Kent's most popular beaches. Shutters might be down today but come the summer, Dimchurch
01:54can be packed full of tourists. But next season's coming with a catch. You're being told to keep
02:00out of the sea. Water quality here has been downgraded to poor following investigations
02:06by the Environment Agency. That'll mean for the whole summer, do not swim signs will be up
02:12in a town reliant on tourism and businesses are fearing for the impact that might bring.
02:18I do think it's quite ridiculous it's going to impact a lot of businesses down here,
02:22especially for us as well and I'm personally trying to open another new business right next
02:28door to this so it will impact in the summer as well because that's where every business is making
02:35money the main time. It's not just Dimchurch Beach that's been rated, it's also been revealed that
02:41St Mary's Bay will now lose its no swim warning. That's for the first time in almost two years
02:48but Deal Castle Beach will gain them. People on the beach today saying they're going to listen
02:53to those rankings. I'm absolutely shocked that that's going to be happening because it's a
02:58really popular beach and it's absolutely full of families all the time in the summer so that's,
03:02you know, it's going to be dreadful for local businesses and also for families coming down
03:06to spend their holidays. The worry is that you pick up some sort of bug and obviously
03:14we've got a two-year-old with us so we don't want her to get any sort of infection or anything like
03:20that. The investigation has found rising levels of E.coli. It's been widely documented that after
03:26heavy rainfall sewage is often discharged into our seas. The Environment Agency says there is
03:32no single course but the local council hopes they'll be able to lose their no swim ratings
03:38mid-season. We are a tourist economy, you know, we are dependent on tourism. It's a real problem
03:48for local people as well so this casts a shadow over the whole tourism industry. A spokesperson
03:55for Southern Water told us they have an important part to play in improving and maintaining water
04:00quality but there are many other factors that impact it. Agricultural, highways and industrial
04:06runoff as well as the impact of animals and marine activity. Chips on the beach is a staple of any
04:14seaside trip but will this be enough to draw tourists in next summer when the no swim warnings
04:20are up with others in Folkestone having no precautions? Gabriel Morris in Dibchurch.
04:27Now as a part of Kent Online's Have A Go Joe series, reporter Joe Crosley has been scorpion
04:33wrangling and no not in the outback but right here in Kent, in fact the Sheerness. He's been
04:39searching ancient walls to find creatures and to help the volunteers protect them. Let's see Joe
04:45have a go then. I'm here at the Bluetown Criterion Museum in Sheerness which is looking for volunteers
04:51to become scorpion wranglers. Their job is to basically patrol the walls and find the scorpion
04:57colony which came here in the 1800s. I'm going to have a go today. Well it's kind of really difficult
05:04this time of the year because it's a little bit cold so I would imagine if I was a scorpion I'd
05:09be in bed tucked up nice and warm but during the summer they, the walls here at Sheerness Docks
05:18teem with scorpions and people tend to think that they're big and evil like they see in
05:27David Attenborough documentaries but they're not. They're really tiny. They are titchy witchy things.
05:36Oh you can just see it's little sort of clawy things. Oh fantastic.
05:43Now small actions lead to big changes in Kent, Medway and beyond. That's what this
05:48year's Green School Awards have recognised. The annual ceremonies take place in Ashford
05:52to celebrate the achievements of schools and students from across the county.
05:57Social Enterprise Kent who run the event say the awarded pupils demonstrate how young minds can
06:02lead the way to a brighter and greener future. Well earlier today I caught up with one of the
06:07organisers, Jo Holmes. Thank you for joining us today Jo. Can you tell us a bit about the awards
06:13and what they're about? Yeah the Green School Awards have been running for quite a few years now
06:19but as every year goes by they get more and more important and more and more interesting and more
06:23and more entered as such. They're you know it's extended into a programme of activities now it's
06:30not just an award ceremony. And how many schools took place this year? We had 28 winners all in
06:40all. Not everybody made it to the award ceremony but we had well over 20 actually join us on the
06:47day. So yeah there's a really good number and a really good representation of all different types
06:52of schools right across Kent. Yeah and attendant on the day as well was someone from KMTV Cameron
06:58Tucker and he mentioned to me that one of his favourites was called Wonkers for Conkers. Can
07:03you tell us a bit about that? Yeah no that was Sandow School. Their initiative won them an award
07:10and it was Wonkers for Conkers. Literally the children have been out and about collecting up
07:14conkers and in their forest school sessions have been experimenting and you can actually make
07:20hand soap from conkers literally just adding water at the right consistency. You've got to get the
07:25right consistency. But they've been collecting their conkers taking them out to forest school
07:30boiling them up and supplying the whole school with hand soap. Wow that I didn't know that that
07:35is really fascinating and how amazing for that as well that they've been able to provide that for
07:39their own school. So you said there's around there was 28 winners. Can you tell us about some
07:44of the other winners and what they did? Yeah there were there were so many and they were so vastly
07:50different. We had Walsley Primary School they've got a sky garden which we all imagine to be a
07:56skyscraper in London but theirs is actually a garden on the roof of their school which is quite
08:02difficult to imagine but they literally have chickens and tortoise as well as lots of
08:07vegetable patches on the roof of their school. The children go up there and look after everything
08:11so that's one. Oakland's Primary School they're involved in Christmas jumper recycling and Santa's
08:18toy exchange and last year they recycled 30 Christmas jumpers and 180 toys so we're looking
08:25forward to seeing what they get up to this year what their figures look like. But all sorts of
08:29things Dartford Science and Technology College they've got an area of school field they've turned
08:34into a centre of sustainability. Obviously we've spoken about Bonkers for Conkers.
08:40Codcock School have been finding out about solar panels not only on their roof but they've actually
08:44gone back to the person or the company rather that have provided the solar panels and found
08:49out all about how they're made and how they work and so they fully understand. We've had road closures
08:56that's Holy Trinity in Dartford. They've got an award for cleaner air because they've completely
09:02closed the roads outside their school and then Wise School were one of our overall winners as well
09:08with all the work that their nature club does so loads and loads of different initiatives they're
09:13just a few examples. I was about to say there's such a variety there and it's nice to hear how
09:17it's actually impacting the community as well especially with the road closure one.
09:21Why is it important to recognise these achievements? I mean for us it's a day where everybody
09:30comes together and shares their achievements but we find it year on year that everybody
09:37sort of swaps notes, swaps hints and tips and it's a snowball effect so the next year when you see
09:43these schools come back again they're doing that bit more and you can see how schools are talking
09:47to each other and learning from each other and yeah it's just it's madness if one tiny action
09:54if you multiply that up by 500 school pupils and then multiply that up by seven or eight schools
10:00that's a massive number of people making a change and when you multiply that up by the whole of Kent
10:06you can you can just see the difference that it's actually making to our county.
10:10And it's amazing to see all these students making such a big difference as well
10:14and but what about the teachers have they been recognised for their help with this as well?
10:19Well they're part of the team on the day and the children are definitely our VIPs
10:24because we want to encourage them and start them young but the teachers equally do get rewarded
10:29and but it's all part of teamwork at the end of the day so there are no boundaries
10:35that the teachers and the pupils are all part of the same team.
10:38And lastly before we go what do you hope this makes a difference to awarding these achievements?
10:46Well it's all part of a bigger program so it's a celebration of a year's worth of activity
10:52but we go again we're literally opening up again for next year and in the meantime getting involved
10:58in projects that support the Green School Awards so for example we're going to have a Green STEM
11:03showcase back in Medway in the summer and that will be an activity where the schools can come
11:08along and bring a whole class with the children and meet up with people like South East Royal
11:13and find out new and inventive ways of helping the environment so it's just part of an ongoing
11:19program it doesn't stop it just keeps going. That's amazing thank you so much for joining
11:23us today and I'm excited to see what next year holds.
11:28Well who knew that you could make soap from conkers? After the break we'll be back to find
11:33out a bit more about the inheritance tax and what this could mean for Kent farmers
11:37and a cat cafe asking the public for donations to help one of its poorly kittens
11:41and a goat sanctuary that says goat abandonment is on the rise. We'll see you then.
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15:08Hello and welcome back to Kent on Climate live on KMTV. A go slow protest involving 100 tractors
15:15made its way through Dover. It was the latest in a series of demonstrations by farmers against
15:20the government's changes to the inheritance tax. They were demanding that the government
15:24axes its plans to impose a 20 inheritance tax on farm assets worth more than a million pounds
15:30from April 2026. It came a few days after a dozen of Kent farmers joined a rally in Westminster
15:37to demonstrate against the government's plans.
15:45In light of inheritance tax, sorry they saw me twice,
15:48tax demonstration the shadow farming minister went out to Kent to shore up some supporters
15:54with farmers ahead of an upcoming vote of an overturned controversial proposal.
15:58Victoria Atkins says the changes would kill a family farming but Labour says it's only a
16:03small number who will pay the price. Oliver Leader de Sack spoke to a senior politician
16:10about the opposition's plans for the future of farming. I'm not sure this government ever had
16:16my trust when it came to farming if you look at who's on the front bench. A feeling not uncommon
16:23in Kent's farming communities particularly here in the wield of Kent where nearly 40 percent
16:30supported the Conservative party at the last election and recent changes to how inheritance
16:37tax works has done little to change their minds. There are farmers who may be multi-generational
16:44farmers who thought they had this tax relief in place who are now looking at enormous tax bills
16:51and that's why farmers are so upset. Lack of consultation the way it was delivered.
16:56Shukin's hops aren't alone in their deep mistrust of Labour and the handling of rural affairs.
17:03Thousands of farmers from across the UK descended on Westminster just a few weeks ago in relation
17:10to changes to inheritance tax and national insurance and it's something Conservatives
17:17hope to capitalise on here in Kent, a county where they lost plenty of seats in the election
17:24but somewhere they hope to rebuild based around their commitment to farmers. When you hear
17:31examples of farms that on paper are worth a very great deal of money, I mean we all know how popular
17:37Kent is as an area to live in, you can imagine the price of land around here and to hear that
17:43these asset-rich farms that may in fact be cash poor so an annual profit of perhaps £20,000
17:51they're then expected to face tax bills of millions of pounds as I've been hearing in my
17:56meeting this morning with farmers. There is just no way that families are going to be able to deal
18:01with this. Now the Conservative Party are set to force a vote to overturn inheritance tax measures
18:08this Wednesday as part of an opposition day debate. I think there are two really important
18:14reasons to put this forward to Labour MPs and to the whole house for a vote on Wednesday. Firstly
18:18I think we want to see whether these rural Labour MPs, you know they've now got about 100 Labour
18:23MPs in rural seats, will put their money where their mouth is and vote for their communities not
18:29for their party and and just fall in line with their leader. And secondly I think it's really
18:34important that the voice of the countryside is heard for better or worse we've got a very urban
18:38government, we've got a very urban cabinet and this rural way of life deserves to be heard.
18:43But with the sheer number of Labour MPs sitting on the government benches,
18:48any opposition day motion is likely to be defeated. And Labour also say they are steadfast
18:56in their support for rural communities, claiming only the wealthier and more valuable estates
19:02will be forced to pay their fair share. But visits like this one show that despite a bitter election
19:10defeat earlier this year, the Conservative party have the garden of England firmly in their sights
19:17as they regroup for the next five years. Oliver, Leader of the Sats for KNTV in Bimindan.
19:26Now each week we take a look at a creature that can be found here in Kent. This week's
19:30critter is not native to the UK as they come all the way from North America and now have spread
19:35across the country. One final hint is that they only weigh around the same amount of a box of
19:39Christmas chocolates. Well have you guessed it? If not, let's take a look further with this week's
19:43creature feature. The furry creature this week you might find scrambling through the trees and
19:49rummaging on the ground. You'll see them stashing food in preparation for winter and you'll be right
19:54in saying the grey squirrel. Many believe this creature hibernates but they're actually active
19:59all year round. You can see them anywhere green, anytime. They survive the harsher weathers by
20:04building fat, creating dens and storing food either in trees or underground which they can
20:09find again during the cooler months through memory or sense of smell. Now you might think the grey
20:13squirrel is a familiar face here in Kent but it's not even a native species to the UK. They were first
20:19introduced in the 19th century and it's now estimated that their population has reached 2.7
20:24million and they're one of the reasons we have seen a decline in the red squirrel, a species which
20:30is native to the UK. The two species are familiar but not to be confused. The bushy tail, grey fur
20:36and red patches around the face and legs will let you know that it's grey and not red. Next tonight
20:42a cat cafe relying on donations in Herne Bay is pleading with the public to help fund life-saving
20:47treatment for their eight-month-old kitten Trixie. Staff say she's not been her usual self but can't
20:53afford the £5,000 vet bill. Trixie's just one of four kittens at the cafe and the owners say she's
21:00already had a rough start to life. Zina Nkwe went down to Herne Bay to meet her. She may look like
21:08your usual feline but Trixie who lives in Herne Bay's cosy cat cafe is unwell. The playful kitten
21:15is normally running around the shop but has gotten much more coy since she fell ill around three
21:21weeks ago. Cat nanny Mel says the eight-month-old has FIP, a hard to diagnose disease that's caused
21:27by a mutated strain of feline coronavirus. Six years ago if a cat was diagnosed with it it was
21:33considered kind of end of life basically because there was no kind of known cure and even kind of
21:41now if a cat is diagnosed with it in certain cases unless treatment kind of begins almost
21:48immediately it can still kind of unfortunately take hold of them pretty quickly and be fatal.
21:53As the 84-day treatment is still quite new it costs up to £5,000 so Cozy Cat have set up a
21:58GoFundMe as they can't afford these bills. Cafe owner Chris explained that this is not Trixie's
22:04first time facing hardship. She was found on Mother's Day by a member of the public together
22:09with her five siblings. Sadly they were born in torrential rain. Trixie had to be resuscitated.
22:15I noticed that Trixie's behaviour had changed. You know she wasn't the usual cat with the bushy
22:22tail, you know her tail up in the air. She just became quiet and started to hide. Her character
22:29changed. Quite lethargic, not herself at all, sort of retreating tail down, ears down, just not
22:36looking great genuinely. So along with her brothers they were just guaranteed to bring absolute chaos
22:41to the cafe daily. When she first came as a kitten she was the life soul of the party and we thought
22:46she'd be the boss. She was a little bit anxious when she first came downstairs but that's changed
22:53a bit. She's found it more difficult recently since she's been poorly to want to be part of
22:59things. In fact today is one of her better days and she's been downstairs a lot and she's been
23:03playing and it's been really good so the medication she's on is obviously helping a bit. The Cozy Cafe
23:08has been open for over five years. There are 13 cats in total and all of them come from local
23:13rescue centres here in Kent. We just really want Trixie to get well. We're just hoping that
23:19you know when we get test results next week that it's all positive that hopefully you
23:25know we can start on her treatment and she makes a full recovery. Xenia Nakvi for KMTV in Herne Bay.
23:33And finally Buttercup Sanctuary near Maidstone says they're seeing a huge increase in the amount
23:38of goats being abandoned. As we enter the colder months the sanctuary worry even more will be left
23:43at their door in the coming weeks. They don't know why there's been so many more of the animals being
23:48dumped by their owners. Our reporter Kristen Hawthorne went to the sanctuary to find out more.
23:54In recent weeks there has been an increase in the amount of goats handed over to the Buttercup
23:59Sanctuary near Maidstone. Usually they take in around three to four a month but have received
24:04over 30 in November alone. One of the goats in this farm is called Hank and he was dangerously
24:09abandoned at a petrol station surviving on handouts from drivers. Thanks to Buttercup
24:14Sanctuary however he is much safer and caregivers even say that he's thriving.
24:19Surprisingly though this is only one of 130 other stories on this sanctuary.
24:24Around Christmas time we usually hear about dogs or cats being abandoned but this year it seems
24:28like goats have joined them. Buttercup Sanctuary alone have over 130 goats that they care for
24:34every day each costing an average of £1,000 a year. Being a very intelligent animal they're
24:41often harder and more expensive to look after than people may expect. Personally I've been involved
24:46with Buttercup since 2011 and prior to that I would never have thought that anyone would have
24:51Prior to that I would never have thought that anyone would have a goat as a pet
24:54and it's astonishing to realise that majority of the goats here at the sanctuary at Buttercup
24:58have come from Kent and Sussex alone. I think there's a common perception that goats eat
25:02everything. Our goats here particularly are quite picky so if for example we supplement feed them
25:08with hay especially in the winter months and if the hay hits the floor they won't eat it.
25:14There is a common perception where goats can be tethered and and be left out like sheep and
25:18they haven't got a lanyard in part to their fur so they can get waterlogged, they can get
25:23hypothermia and cold conditions and they do need to be put away at night. At this sanctuary however
25:28they appreciate when people admit they need help and do the best that they can for the animal
25:33even if it means giving them up. Claire has fostered seven goats that live at her home.
25:38She says they aren't too difficult to take care of but the right facilities are needed for their
25:42health and safety. They need proper fencing, a big area to graze, the correct food and plenty
25:48of socialisation with other goats. You should care about everything, you should care about people,
25:53you should care about animals, you should care about the climate change, you could care about
25:58everything in the world. Having more than 70 volunteers already many seem to be eager to spend
26:04time with and care for the goats. From my time here I can see why so many love the animal.
26:09Buttercup Sanctuary are open to donations, new volunteers and they even offer adoptions.
26:15The takeaway is always do what is best for the animal and never be ashamed to ask for help.
26:20Kristen Hawthorne for KMTV in Boughtonland Chelsea.
26:24That's all we have time for on this week's episode of Kent on Climate. We'll be back next
26:28week with another episode discussing more matters relevant to the environmental issues in the county.
26:34In the meantime you can keep up to date on all things climate related by visiting our website
26:39kmtv.co.uk. Well that's all from us and we'll see you next week with another episode of Kent on Climate.