Catch up with all the latest news from across the county with Finn Macdiarmid.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Kent Tonight, live here on KMTV.
00:28I'm Finn McDermid and here are your top stories on Tuesday the 15th of April.
00:35Millions unused, Medway Council stockpiled £20 million from housing developers and haven't
00:41used a penny.
00:42Running out of luck, the mystery lottery winner from Sevenoaks has just a week left to claim
00:46their ticket.
00:50And Songkran Celebration, locals celebrate Thai New Year's in Maidstone.
00:55At first tonight, Medway Council is sitting on nearly £20 million of unused funding from
01:00housing developers.
01:01Section 106 contributions improve local communities when developers receive planning permissions
01:06for larger projects.
01:07A Freedom of Information request revealed that just one and a half percent of the money collected
01:11in the last 12 years for health projects has been spent.
01:14Local democracy reporter Gabriel Morris has the story.
01:17Over the last decade or two, Medway has seen some large scale developments across its towns.
01:24After planning permission is given, a legal agreement is signed between the developer and the local
01:28authority.
01:30It's to give community money to the local area to offset the burden of whatever they're building.
01:37Now, here in Gillingham, this play park was funded by Section 106 contributions.
01:42However, as a whole, not all of the money contributed over the last 12 years has been spent.
01:49Maggie Francis first became aware of this ten years ago.
01:52Well, people have to have homes.
01:54We know that.
01:55We all started out somewhere.
01:56Fighting against a housing developer's appeal, now built and overlooking her home.
02:02Since then, she has sent more than a thousand emails, farred freedom at information requests
02:07and held meetings to try and find out where the money has gone.
02:12I'm disgusted.
02:13Absolutely disgusted.
02:14I've been asking for years to see what this money is being spent on.
02:20It's almost as if it's a hot potato and everybody's passing it around and nobody wants to catch it.
02:25What is it that you want Medway Council to tell you?
02:28Nobody's told me anything.
02:30Nobody has ever told me that I'm wrong.
02:33Nobody's ever asked me, until you've come along, why I'm asking these questions.
02:39It's almost as if, just move along here, nothing to see here, just ignore her and she'll go
02:44away.
02:45I think they're discovering that I'm not going away.
02:49It's been revealed that the total unspent money stacks up to 19 and a half million pounds
02:55since 2013.
02:56When it comes to health-related projects, after the 40 agreements signed, only two have
03:02been spent.
03:03Some of this money set aside to improving GP services in the towns.
03:08Medway Council says it takes time and planning to spend contributions, but the team continues
03:12to work with those services and third-party partners to ensure funds are utilised appropriately.
03:18It's also understood that there's frustration with the local NHS Integrated Care Board over collecting
03:24the funding from the authority.
03:25The ICB says when there is an identified and approved project to allocate the funding to,
03:30there can be a significant time lag between the S106 contribution being secured through the
03:35planning application, the development starting and getting to the stage where the contribution
03:40is due.
03:41And nationally, it's thought £8 billion worth of this money is being held by councils, according
03:47to the Home Builders Federation.
03:49What's more, there are time limits, meaning if it's not spent, the developer can request
03:54it back.
03:55Gabriel Morris in Medway.
03:57Now, one lucky person in Sevenoaks has drawn a winning ticket for the lottery's Set for
04:03Life draw and would get £10,000 a month for 30 years.
04:07But their luck is about to run out, as they haven't claimed the prize totalling £3.6 million,
04:11and they have just a week to realise and produce a winning ticket, or they won't see a penny of
04:16that money.
04:17Now, these aren't the numbers.
04:18The numbers are, in fact, 2, 11, 29, 37, 45, and a life ball of 6.
04:24So if you recognise those numbers, you could be a millionaire without even realising.
04:27Well, I went down to Sevenoaks to see if I could find this secret millionaire.
04:33What would you do if you had £10,000 straight into your bank account every month for 30 years?
04:39Well for one Sevenoaks local, the dream is a reality, but the catch is they don't even
04:43know it.
04:44And if they don't realise and produce a winning ticket by the 22nd of April, then the
04:48money will go to national lottery-funded projects across the country instead of their wallet.
04:53But there's another catch.
04:54The ticket was bought all the way back in October last year, and time is running out.
04:59If the Sevenoaks secret millionaire doesn't come forward in the next week, then they wouldn't
05:03be entitled to a penny of that life-changing money.
05:06But I was on a mission to find our missing money bags with the help of the people of Sevenoaks.
05:10Of the 120,000 people here in Sevenoaks, just one person has the winning ticket.
05:15And we're going to see if we can find them today.
05:17Let's go.
05:18Excuse me, madam.
05:19Hi.
05:20Do you use the lottery at all?
05:21Do you know I don't?
05:22You don't?
05:23OK.
05:24Well, if you did win, what would you do with the Set for Live campaign, so it's £10,000
05:27every month for 30 years, a total of £3,600,000.
05:30What would you do if you ended up winning?
05:32Gosh.
05:33So someone's won that locally, haven't they?
05:35Yes.
05:36Do you know, £10,000 a month is an awful lot.
05:39So I think I'd probably, I've got children that would really welcome a bit of money every
05:43month.
05:44So I think I'd probably do that, kind of support everyone.
05:47A little car, lovely little house, stay in the area and give the rest to my daughter
05:52for her life, you know, the rest of her life.
05:54I would disappear from England and travel the world, possibly, and go everywhere where
06:01the weather is hot.
06:02Travelling to see our family abroad in either Australia, or in Canada, or in Eastern Southern
06:09Africa.
06:10Some advice experts have given includes remembering back to autumn when the ticket was bought,
06:15checking coat pockets, scouring through their vehicles, and even in places you might
06:18not expect.
06:19People have kept tickets in dictionaries under L for the lottery.
06:26People have kept them under the front door mat as a place where it won't move from.
06:33A million and one places, I'm sure, anything you can probably think of has possibly happened
06:39in terms of where people have kept their tickets safe.
06:42Now it has happened before, where people would find their tickets right before the deadline.
06:45And as I was speaking to people, quite a few had heard of the missing winner.
06:48But we were no closer to finding them.
06:51But this isn't the end.
06:52Like I say, there's one more week.
06:54So, we've been mainly operating around this area.
06:57But now, I want you to go out and see if you can find the set flight winner anywhere here
07:01or in the rest of Sevenoaks.
07:03Family members, co-workers, your dog's groomers, the person serving you in a shop.
07:07The winner could be anyone, up until that deadline day of Tuesday, April 22nd.
07:11And while it will certainly be a mission to find them, it's far from impossible.
07:15Finn McDermid for KMTV in Sevenoaks.
07:20Now, homelessness in rural areas has increased by more than 40% in the last five years.
07:25And charities are hoping to launch a trial that could help those sleeping rough in East Kent.
07:29The Housing First scheme could see those in rural areas find support they might not normally be able to access.
07:34Porchlight has been meeting with housing associations and local councils to propose their plan to tackle the growing issue.
07:41We were joined on the line earlier today by Chris Thomas from the charity.
07:45It's similar to the homelessness that we're seeing in towns and cities.
07:49But it's people in more secluded rural locations.
07:54And the issue we have is that there's a lot of people who are homeless.
07:59We don't really know where there are or even how many of them there are because they might, you know, be sleeping in a barn, sleeping away in woodlands.
08:09They're very hidden away.
08:11And they're encountering this issue where a lot of homelessness services in this country are designed with cities and towns in mind.
08:23So if you are rural, if you're homeless in a rural area, you're kind of cut off from a lot of that.
08:30And your only option is to travel quite a big distance to go and get support.
08:35And that just doesn't work for people.
08:37And as you've said, this is sort of fueling this crisis where we're seeing more and more rural homelessness.
08:44I mean, it's such a difficult one to sort of tackle because people who are suffering from rural homelessness are going to have so much less access to different services, access to care, health care, for example.
08:58So how do we go about tackling it?
09:02So we believe that the solution to this is with something called Housing First.
09:07And Housing First is a scheme that's a little bit different to what most people recognise as homelessness support.
09:17So it's not like an emergency shelter.
09:19It's not like a hostel in a town.
09:21Essentially, if someone's homeless, they are given a place of their own.
09:28They're given a flat of their own.
09:30And there are no conditions put on them if they want to move in.
09:35So if you went into a hostel, for example, you might have to sort of meet certain criteria.
09:42But for a lot of people, they don't really fit into institutions.
09:47They don't they find it difficult to trust being somewhere where being in somewhere that's trying to improve them because it's all about giving someone a home first.
09:57And then the support goes to them of them having to go somewhere for support.
10:02We think it's going to have a massive impact on people who are homeless in rural areas.
10:07Yeah. And of course, homelessness in any area across the county or country is a problem that needs to be addressed as well.
10:14But I can imagine some councils, some businesses, those businesses in the high streets as well.
10:19And the residents that use the high street would say that they'd rather see homelessness tackled in the high streets.
10:25They'd rather see people moved on because perhaps it's bringing business down.
10:29People aren't visiting as much or they see more people sleeping rough in their local high streets as well.
10:35Everyone is struggling for money, you know, and homelessness is getting worse.
10:41It's not it's not cheap to help people, but it is important in terms of homelessness growing.
10:49I was just talking about this housing first scheme and the difference.
10:54One of the main sort of selling points of it, I suppose, is that it's proven to break the cycle of homelessness.
11:02So once someone gets that kind of support, they typically don't end up, you know, homeless again in a year's time and then in and out of homelessness support.
11:18So it's it's about putting something in place, you know, in rural areas, obviously in towns and cities as well, that allows people to move away from homelessness for good.
11:34Well, it looks like that's all we have time for for now. But coming up after the break, we're going to find out how the Buddhist festival of Songkran is making an influence here in Kent.
11:44And we'll share how Medway Food Bank goes the extra mile to support unpaid carers.
11:49All that and more after this short break.
15:13Welcome back to Kent Tonight here on KMTV.
15:15Now, New Year might feel like a distant memory for most of us.
15:18But for some religions, the celebrations are only just beginning across Kent this April.
15:22The Songkran festival, which comes from Buddhism, sees people taking part in rituals like bathing statues with scented water.
15:28Our reporter Henry Luck headed to a Maidstone business this week to see how they brought the tradition to life here in the county.
15:35The Thai Orchid here in Maidstone is celebrating New Years in April with a tradition of their own.
15:43Songkran derived from the Skanska word Sangkranti meaning passing or approaching is a national three day holiday in Thailand.
15:54An important part of Songkran is water because it's used as a spiritual cleanser to wash away the sins and misfortunes of the past year.
16:07One of the most important rituals of the event is paying respect to Buddhist monks by gifting them food.
16:14There's a time also with the Buddha statue here. You'll see that the people will come by and they will pour water over the Buddha statue.
16:24Again, offering respect, but at the same time as a purification.
16:29And then they will pour it over the hands of the monks as they walk by.
16:33And then over the elders, so any of the elders of the Thai community.
16:38It's a very beautiful tradition, it's a very beautiful day.
16:41The owner of the Thai Orchid wanted to bring the tradition of Songkran for everyone in Maidstone to experience and enjoy.
16:50So what reminds me of Songkran is water festival, you know, because in Thailand people always say that there are three seasons, hotter and hottest.
17:00You know, so that's why April is the hottest month, you know, so that's why we have to bring the water, cold water and splash the water to each other.
17:10I decided to get a blessing myself from the Buddhist monks, which hopefully will give me good fortune for the year ahead.
17:18And there's more events coming up in 2025 for anyone hoping to get involved in the Thailand culture.
17:25OK, actually, it's not only for Thai community, we also promote this festival for locals like British, you know, or Europeans living here as well.
17:37We are really proud of our culture, so that's why we would like to spread this to other people to visit us.
17:43Henry Luck for KMTV in Maidstone.
17:48Now a farm's family fun day took a turn, leaving children distressed and upset after being targeted by animal rights activists.
17:57The police were called to Swan Young Farmers Club in Cudworth, where the campaigners were found distributing leaflets titled Fluffy Tails Slaughterhouse Tours,
18:04including a QR code directing people to a YouTube video of people abusing animals in a slaughterhouse.
18:11One parent was shocked as one of the activists upset her daughter and stopped her push chair.
18:16Other parents were amused by the leaflets but said their children were left distressed.
18:20Police say no arrests were made and the event still raised almost three grand for the club.
18:25Now a reformed UK leaflet has had to be removed from circulation after it was reported to the police for violating standard rules.
18:32Distributed in Folkestone and Hive, the pamphlet breached election rules as it depicted the party leader, Nigel Farage, next to the Kent County Council logo.
18:43People claimed it could have misled voters to believe KCC was endorsing their party and were made to retract the leaflet from distribution.
18:50The party has since publicly apologised for using the logo and stated it hadn't gone through the appropriate approval process.
18:56Now with the cost of living affecting thousands, some who are particularly struggling in these times are unpaid carers, according to charities.
19:05In fact, one in seven have had to use a food bank.
19:08Medway Food Bank has partnered with Carers First and started a campaign called the Carer Poverty Project to try and tackle the issue.
19:14They believe the carers' allowance just isn't enough to support these key workers, despite the increase in the earnings threshold.
19:22Well, we were joined by Mike Evans from Medway Food Bank to discuss what they're doing to try and help unpaid carers.
19:27Mike, thank you very much for joining us today.
19:30Now, Medway Food Bank has joined forces with Carers First, and that's in the hope of reducing the number of unpaid carers living in poverty.
19:38And there's actually a large number using your service.
19:41What have they told you as to why that is?
19:46Well, there's a variety of reasons.
19:48Obviously, the cost of living is very, very high at the moment.
19:53That has got worse this month because there are increases in council tax, gas, electricity, water bills are going up, broadband.
20:06But even before those recent rises, many, many carers have been struggling.
20:12Well, the government have previously said the increase in the carers' allowance earnings threshold is the biggest rise since its introduction in 1976.
20:23But you'd say it's just not enough to meet those increasing pressures and costs elsewhere.
20:29Yeah, I mean, that's the earnings threshold.
20:31That's a different thing.
20:32That's not the amount you're paid.
20:34The earnings threshold was previously £151 a week, which was the amount you're allowed to earn to be eligible for carers' allowance.
20:41That has gone up a lot to £196 a week.
20:45So you're now able to earn £196 a week and not lose your carers' allowance.
20:51But it doesn't alter the fact that carers' allowance is still incredibly low at £83.30 per week.
20:57So the fact that you're able to earn a little bit more, if you add those two numbers up, £196 and £80, it's still a very low sum.
21:06And tell us how this campaign came about working with carers first.
21:12What are some of the issues that you've noticed actually at the food bank with some carers coming to you and asking for your support?
21:19The project originated from Trussell actually, formerly Trussell Trust.
21:26Medway Food Bank is affiliated to Trussell and they have a vision of a society without the need for food banks.
21:33It's very idealistic and optimistic, perhaps.
21:35But they've asked each individual food bank to identify the drivers of poverty in their area and to work to reduce them.
21:46And we have teamed up with Carers First because Carers First have noticed that there's an absolute epidemic of poverty amongst the carers that they are supporting.
21:57Carers First give practical advice to carers and emotional support to carers.
22:01But they're very, very worried about how many carers are in deep, deep poverty.
22:06And we, of course, have noticed a huge number of carers coming to the food bank.
22:11You know, they're brilliant people who work in that industry, but the pay is very low.
22:15But this campaign is specifically about unpaid carers who are normally family members looking after a loved one, someone who might have dementia or profound learning disabilities.
22:29Tell us how you're going to be helping these carers.
22:31How are you going to be trying to reach out to them and making sure that they're getting the support that you can offer?
22:36What we're doing at the moment is, together with Carers First, we have started the Carer Poverty Project.
22:48And I'd invite any of your viewers to go on to our website, the carerpovertyproject.co.uk.
22:57There you'll find stories about carers who are struggling.
23:04But we particularly like those people who support the work that we're doing to sign a petition, which is linked on that website,
23:13which is urging Parliament to increase carers allowance so that it matches minimum wage.
23:20And I just want to make clear the government's response just so it has a right of reply to that as well.
23:25It says it's also making available up to £3.7 billion extra for local authorities with social care responsibility in the new financial year,
23:34including an £880 million increase in the social care grant.
23:39Obviously, you would no doubt come back and say, well, that money should be potentially going to the carers themselves rather than going to these services.
23:47But then, you know, these services are also very important, no less.
23:51Carer support plans, which local authorities put together, they're so underfunded, they're unable to provide the respite care that's required by carers.
24:00So any additional funding would be welcome.
24:02But Adult Social Services has been underfunded, so grossly underfunded for so long that even though this extra money is welcome, really more is needed.
24:13But, you know, it's welcome, of course.
24:15And as you've been outlining for us, Mike, there are a lot of different people reaching out to your service here in Medway.
24:22And that is a reflection on the bigger picture here in Kent, whether they're in paid work, whether they're not.
24:27You're seeing a wide range of people using the service that just wouldn't have relied on it before.
24:31How do you think that's changed over the past few years, looking at more widely what you do at the food bank?
24:37Last year, our statistics showed that we are providing food support for twice as many people as we were in 2019.
24:45So it's a huge, and that's reflected nationwide.
24:51There has been a plateauing this year, which we're absolutely delighted about.
24:56We're not quite sure why that is, but we're certainly, you know, very grateful for it.
25:02But that is a plateauing at a very high level.
25:05So demand in Medway is very, very high.
25:11And, of course, Medway Food Bank isn't the only food bank in Medway.
25:15There are independent food banks which are operating as well and which are also very busy.
25:19Mike Evans from Medway Food Bank, thank you very much for speaking with us today.
25:24Thank you for having me.
25:26Now, we've been having some quite warm weather, but it's taken a bit of a turn today.
25:30Lots of rain we've been seeing outside.
25:32Well, let's see if it's going to get any better.
25:35Cloudy skies this evening with temperatures of 10 degrees all around the county,
25:44with the exception of nine down there in Royal Tunbridge Wells.
25:47Sorry, Tunbridge Wells.
25:48Now, tomorrow morning we've had some sun peeking through the clouds.
25:51Temperature of 10 degrees all across the county.
25:53And expect clear skies tomorrow evening.
25:56An average temperature of 14 degrees.
25:58Highs of 15 up there in Dartford.
26:00And over the next few days, temperatures of 15 on Thursday.
26:04Saturday warming up a little to 16 degrees, but mostly some cloud covering that sun.
26:08What a shame.
26:17And it's more bad news as that's all the time we have.
26:19You've been watching Kent Tonight live here on KMTV.
26:22There's more news made just for Kent throughout the evening.
26:25Don't forget, you can always keep up to date with the latest news across your county
26:29by logging on to kmtv.co.uk.
26:32You can keep us on your social timelines by liking us on Facebook
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26:38And if you have a story that you think we should be covering,
26:40then please don't hesitate to get in touch.
26:43That's all from me for now, but we'll see you very soon.
26:46Good night.
26:47Good night.
26:48Good night.
26:49Good night.
26:50Good night.