It’s not every day you get to walk to school to the sound of a brass band. For the children of St Francis primary school in Maidstone, marching the route to the gates with a trumpet, tuba, drum and a trombone in tow was the culmination of an active journeys competition. Throughout May, Kent County…
Find out more about the archaeological secrets of Cobham with a special event running this month. The Heritage Lottery-funded Cobham Landscape Detectives Project is holding a Big Dig in the village for the UK-wide Festival of Archaeology. It is being held from July 15 to 30 and will reveal more about the history and archaeology…
The number of fines issued to parents for taking their children out of Kent schools has reduced again this year. From September 2016 to July 2017, 1,221 parents were fined for unauthorised absences, compared to 3,504 in 2015/16 and 4,726 in 2014/15. The drop is as a result in a change of policy to prosecute…
Three Kent families have been filming themselves following the Change4Life programme, with the aim of improving their lifestyles through small changes to exercise and eating habits. Figures show that in Kent, one in five children enter primary school overweight or obese but this increases to one in three pupils leaving primary school overweight or obese.…
Kent County Council puts fire safety as a top priority and a robust fire safety review is in place across its complex estate of public buildings. Out of approximately 1,000 KCC public buildings across the county, a total of 155 sites have been identified to date as having modern cladding systems. The council is fully…
The scheduled closure of the North Farm Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC) and Transfer Station in Tunbridge Wells has been postponed. It was due to begin on July 16. This decision has been taken to allow further evaluation of the required works to ensure the closure period is kept to a minimum. The site remains…
A schoolgirl from Tonbridge has written to Kent County Council to ask for help with protecting the environment. So dismayed by litterbugs, Charlotte Flower, nine, penned a letter to KCC’s waste department to ask for some “litter picker uppers” to help her and her friends keep their school grounds clean. In the note, the Sussex…
The Chairman of Kent County Council has paid tribute to Countess Mountbatten, who died earlier this week at the age of 93. David Brazier said: “The Countess was a distinguished and highly-respected resident of Kent. “She was one of the first two female Deputy Lieutenants appointed in the county in 1973 and was involved in…
Shoppers, visitors and workers in the county town will benefit from a new 250-space car park from tomorrow (Thursday), following the acquisition of the former Royal Mail site near Maidstone East rail station by KCC and Maidstone Borough Council. One hundred of those spaces in the Sandling Road car park are in the “under croft”…
The number of people killed or seriously injured (KSI) on roads in Kent and Medway has gone up by more than a third. The latest figures for 2016 show that KSI figures have risen from 707 to 978 – a 38% increase, which appears to be similar to the national picture. Broken down, the number…
Kent County Council has successfully prosecuted a mother and father for allowing their son’s school attendance to drop to just 10% while Kent schools’ average attendance rate is well above 95%. The couple have been found guilty and fined £1,240 each by magistrates. The parents, who failed to appear in court, had told KCC they…
Kent County Council is to widen Kennington Road in Ashford. It will be done in the Longport Bridge area between the junction with Blackwall Road North and the Julie Rose Stadium. The road narrows creating a localised pinch point affecting traffic flows in the area. It will be necessary to close part of Kennington Road…