Our top story today is the shocking news that broke overnight - the stabbing of a soldier in uniform close to an army barracks in Medway.
Emergency crews were called to Sally Port Gardens which is near Brompton Barracks just before 6pm. Hear from our reporters at the scene, we've also go reaction from Rochester and Strood MP Lauren Edwards.
Also in today's podcast, some people living in run-down tower blocks in Thanet have been told they face a huge bill to cover the cost of essential refurbishments.
Work on the buildings is said to total £40 million. We've got the full details from our local democracy reporter Dan Esson.
The fallout from Friday's IT outage is continuing - as doctors across Kent try to re-book an estimated 34,000 appointments.
The worldwide problem affected a system called EMIS which is used by the vast majority of practices across the county.
People who've contributed to culture and creativity in Medway are being recognised with honorary degrees later.
Chatham-born designer Zandra Rhodes will get a doctorate from Canterbury Christ Church Uni.
While Carol Stewart - who's chair of the Medway African and Caribbean Association - is recognised by the Uni of Kent and we've been getting her reaction.
A woman who runs a hedgehog rescue near Ashford says growing costs are making it difficult for them to help animals in need.
Lisa Steward started taking in poorly hedgehogs after finding one in her garden in Pluckley - and now has more than 100 of them, but Thorne Hedgehog Rescue relies entirely on donations. Lisa has been describing her typical day.
And in football, Gillingham have beaten Dartford 4-nil in a pre-season friendly.
Jayden Clarke and youth team striker Harry Bridle scored two goals each at Princes Park last night.
– Kent Online News – News You Can Trust – This is the Kent Online Podcast – Nicola Everett. Hello, thanks ever so much for downloading today's podcast on Wednesday, July 24th. A top story today is the shocking news that broke overnight, the stabbing of a soldier in uniform close to an army barracks. Emergency crews were called to sallyport gardens, which is near Brompton Barracks just before 6pm. It's understood the air ambulance landed on the nearby park. A man in his forties was taken to hospital and at the time of recording today's podcast, he said to be in a serious condition. La reporter Brad Harper was the first on the scene. – Eyewitnesses reported seeing a man with two kitchen knives attacking a soldier on a path outside military accommodation. The Eyewitness also said that his wife rushed to help him, but the attacker couldn't be stopped and he soon fled on a moped. Please arrested a man a short time later, off cityway in Rochester. A 24-year-old has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. – An army spokesperson has said, "We're very sorry to confirm that a soldier has sustained serious injuries in an attack in Chatham. Our thoughts are with the soldier and their family and we request that their privacy is respected at this difficult time. We will continue to work closely with Kent Police to understand what happened and support the investigation," reporter Charlotte Phillips has also been at the scene today. – The area has been cordoned off by police and officers are still at the scene on each side of the police tape. Police cars are also parked on each side of the cordon. There are also foot patrols in the area, speaking with nearby residents, but there aren't really many people out on the street so far this morning. I spoke with a dog walker earlier this morning, who lives right around the corner from where the stabbing took place, who described the incident as really scary. – Defense Secretary John Healy has released a statement on X. He says, "It's shocking to hear of an attack on a soldier. My thoughts are with the soldier and his family who deserve privacy at this time. On behalf of the Government, I wish him a swift recovery." – Councilor Vince Maple is the leader of Medway Council. He's also issued a statement today. It says, "Our thoughts with the individual involved and his family at this time are armed forces personnel and their families are a valued part of our Medway community. It's good to see increased patrols at this time by Kent Police for community reassurance. We've also had a message through from the Labour MP for Gillingham and Raynam Nushaba Khan. She says, "I'm deeply shocked and deeply saddened by the attack on a soldier near Brompton Barracks yesterday. My thoughts are with the individual and his family at this time. The armed forces and their families are a valued and important part of the Medway family and serve to keep us safe. This incident will undoubtedly concern the community and the support of Kent Police is very welcome at this time." Kate has just been getting reaction from Rochester and Strewd MP Lauren Edwards. "I mean, I was obviously horrified when I heard about it and really my thoughts were obviously just very quickly with the victim and his family and the broader armed forces community that we have in Brompton that I know is incredibly supportive and will be rallying around with the family today." "What sort of reassurances can we offer to the community that this is a one-off contained incident?" "So the police have told me that they are considering it at the moment as an isolated event. We know that they are doing some enhanced patrolling in the area because we know that people are concerned and that visible police presence will hopefully be very reassuring for them. I know that senior police will be visiting the area this afternoon and I hope to be with them as well. So really we're just trying to reassure everybody and pull together to support the community." "It must be quite difficult as well because obviously there are a lot of armed forces personnel and their families living in that area. Are you in contact with the armed forces at all and again offering those reassurances that they're safe?" "Absolutely. I hope to be visiting the barracks with the police later this afternoon to meet with them and to meet with the community and just reassure them that everything is being done to investigate what's gone on here. Obviously the suspect is in custody and we are obviously just waiting to hear news from the victim who I understand is in hospital but obviously our thoughts are really with him and his family." We will continue to keep you updated on this story. You can see pictures from the scene and the very latest information by heading to Kent Online. Kent Online News. Other top stories for you today and some people living in rundown tower blocks in Fannet have been told they face a huge bill to cover the cost of essential repairs. Work on the buildings is said to total £40 million. Now most of the 400 flats are social housing but 32 are owned outright with lease holders having to find up to £40,000. I'll join now by our local democracy reporter Dan Essen. Firstly Dan, can you explain where the flats are and what the issues are with them? One of them in Victor houses in Margate and then the other four of them are spread throughout Ramsgate. They have been in need of renovation for a while. They are all sort of quite classic, post-war housing, 50s, 60s tower block, council house building boom. They have got some structural problems. They are not the most aesthetically appealing in the eyes of the council and many residents so they are going to get an exterior makeover as well and a big thing is fire safety and external clouding measures and that kind of thing. Some of which is post-Grenfell regulation and other parts for just sort of updated building standards in the past few years which they need to comply with. Now the cost of renovations was initially much lower. What's changed? So originally Dan and District Council consented to spend just under 20 million on this project back in March 2023. But at a report this week that was by the council basically they have been told the cost has balloons to 40 million and to the credit this isn't like the council have bungled their maths or anything like that. Essentially when they were doing surveys for the work they found that there were some fire safety problems and essentially they opted for higher standards of fire safety renovations and that kind of thing which is significantly more expensive so essentially doubling the cost. But what they say is that those are essential and if they didn't do those the buildings would be unsafe in the future and also that they wouldn't be able to get grant funding from government bodies like Holmes England and the social housing decarbonisation fund to help fund the works because it wouldn't be too high enough standard. And why could some residents have to fork out but not all? So like I said the blocks are almost entirely council housing. There's 403 apart flats across all of these across these five blocks and them but 32 almost all of those are council housing council tenants but 32 of those are owned by lease holders you know people who bought their council houses under right by legislation brought in by the Thatcher government back in the day. And essentially when you buy a council house that sits in a larger council building isn't you know like a property in its own right you signed a lease contract which says that you know kind of like if you own a flat in a regular block of flats you know you have to pay maintenance fees and that kind of thing but as a result those lease holders are the only people in there who are going to have to you know pay outright costs for the for all the works being done to it and it's quite a hefty bill they're looking at the council's current estimate which needs to be finalised but they're expecting they'll be charging residents or lease holders in the flats who own their own place anywhere from 25 to 40 grand each for the works. You know they don't have to pay that all at once that's something that they can you know the council says they can do payment plans but obviously you know if you've got a mortgage and that kind of thing it's you know still quite significant amount of money you're going to have to walk out for a long while. Finally down what if the council said and when will it be decided on? So like I said the you know the final decision by the council is due is due on this day where they're where they'll approve the where they'll approve the whole project. It's unlikely that any details will change or anything like that because it's a very large project very expensive involves a lot of different teams on the council so they're expected to approve it and essentially you know what they say is that these works are absolutely necessary and then the district council's administration a label one that was elected last year in particular distressed that you know they take housing very seriously and and they're perfectly willing to to spend a lot of money you know to improve the standards of their council housing and what's going on is important to stress that a lot of the money isn't coming straight from the town of district council they're spending about 11 million if their own money and then the rest of it is coming from all sorts of government bodies which are helping them out with it. Dan thank you ever so much. Ken's online reports. The owners of Dreamland have insisted their venue is not to blame for the death of a 17 year old girl following a suspected overdose. Emily Stokes passed away after attending a drum and bass event at the Margate site at the end of June more than 20 other young people ended up in hospital. Sands Heritage Limited has also defended security that was in place on the day a review of its license would take place today police have already said they do not think it should be revoked. A burglar and Karthi who crashed into a motorcycle in Crocken Hill while trying to flee police have been locked up. Chad Goodall had stolen design handbags, watches and jewellery from homes in Seven Oaks and Crayford before the collision in February. The 44 year old who has no fixed address left his victims with serious injuries. He's been sentenced to more than 11 years. Four people have been charged after loaded handguns and drugs were found inside a property in Greenheith. Officers searched the house in Knuckle Road on Sunday. They found the weapons as well as two and a half kilos of cocaine and cannabis. Three men from Kent and one woman from London facing a number of charges. A fifth man from Dartford has been released on bail. Now the fallout from Friday's IT outage is continuing. As doctors across Kent try to re-book an estimated 34,000 appointments. The worldwide problem affected a system called EMIS which is used by the vast majority of practices across the county. Now while the patient appointment and record programme is back up and running, it's going to take some time to clear the backlog. Dr Caroline Ricard is from the Kent local medical committee and has been speaking to Abby Hook from our colleagues at KMTV. What patients will be experiencing is probably some delays in terms of their prescription processing and obviously at the time of Friday we were unable to re-book appointments that had to be cancelled because we couldn't access our system at all and so patients will be trying to contact practices to re-book those cancelled appointments this week. And we all know how busy the phone lines get for the doctors as it is and as you mentioned there the IT problems they are solved. That is back online but it's about these appointments that have had to be rescheduled. So is that pushing people to the back of the queue? Those that already had appointments booked, Monday Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are they all being pushed back to the back of the queue? What can people expect if they have a doctor's appointment imminently? So how practices approach this will probably vary from practice to practice. On Friday, practices will have undertaken a triage process to make sure that patients with urgent needs will not have just been left trying to get back in touch with their practice. And what's the advice to patients at the minute if they are waiting on the phone lines even longer than the usual wait time it can be at that eight o'clock slot in the morning when we're trying to to call up the doctors? Can people get through at all? What can they expect? What's the advice? So patients should be able to contact their practice in the usual way now so if you are unable to get through to your practice just try again and you should be able to get through now. And what would you like to see done more widely I suppose to stop something like this happening in the future? The system's going to change now will there be a review of some kind to look at what went so badly wrong and how people can adapt? Of course it's not necessarily anybody's fault that this happened we still need to get to the bottom of this IT issue and how it's impacted so many different sectors of course we've talked a lot about airlines as well as GPs too. So what's the change I suppose that GPs will need to make? What are their conversations about how they'll adapt for the future? Yeah I think as you alluded to this has highlighted distant problems across across the world. This was a global IT outage that nobody could have anticipated but it has really highlighted how vulnerable certain parts of certainly health care general practice are. The computer systems in GP surgeries are all decided by NHS England and GP surgeries do not have direct control over which computer systems they use and so we have been asking for some conversations to be had and we know that the BMA who are our union representative are having some of these conversations with NHS England to discuss how we improve the resilience of the system so that something like this doesn't happen again. Cancer online reports. Nominations open today in the race to be the next leader of the Conservative Party. Rishi Sunak announced he was stepping down following a heavy defeat in the general election earlier this month. It's thought Tumbridge MP Tom Tugenhart and Laura Trott who represents Seven Oaks could put their names forward. Candidates need the backing of 10 MPs. A man's been arrested after police dogs tracked down a rucksack filled with cocaine at cannabis and ketamine in Tumbridge Wells. Officers saw someone acting suspiciously in Hornbeam Avenue earlier this month. A 21-year-old is facing drugs and weapons charges. Firefighters are still at the scene of an industrial blaze in Ramsgate nearly 30 hours after it started. This was the top story on the Kent online podcast yesterday at its height 12 fire engines. We used to tackle the flames at a laundry company on Northwood Road. Crews are now monitoring the site. The new housing and community secretary is being urged to approve plans for a new special need school in Medway. The parallel learning trust which already has a school in Chatham wants to build on a site in Gillingham to meet a demand for places. It's been approved by the council but Sport England objected saying playing fields would be lost. So now government will have to decide. People who've contributed to culture and creativity in Medway are being recognised with honoree degrees today. Chatham-born designer Zandra Rhodes will get a doctorate from Canterbury Christchurch Uni while Carol Stewart who's chair of the Medway African and Caribbean Association is recognised by the Uni of Kent. Well I've been chatting to Carol about what it means to her. I was just totally surprised when I got the email from the university a few months ago and I was sworn to secrecy for a while. But yeah it's just nice to be recognised. I mean I do what I do in terms of community work. I've been doing it since the age of seven when I was living in the Midlands and always giving back. So I started out in the church really. My parents took us all to church and I was in the guides, the brownies, helped out at Sunday school and I got involved in my local youth club from a very early age and and the youth leader there Chris Merrick's. She always encouraged all the young people there but I think she saw something in me that I didn't see myself because it's at school I was always sort of put down as an average like sort of C students and never really encouraged me very much. So she encouraged me and other young people to sort of do more leadership stuff in the community and then I ended up chairing a youth organisation I think at about the age of 15 or 16 and we worked together to get the first youth centre like town centre youth facility more by Hampton and yeah and I've just been yeah just giving all my life really so it kind of felt natural when I moved to to Medway. I got a job down here to keep giving back new. And you really have given back hugely to the community. For anyone who doesn't know do you want to tell us a bit about just some of the things that you do? You're just incredibly busy. I was just crazy so by day I'm a qualified American social workers and I have my own company so I do a lot of training and development for local authorities and private and voluntary sector up and down the country and yeah and then I chair Medway African Carabin Association so together we've just done so many fantastic things like the Black and Cheepers Awards in its 18th year. We have a drop in every Tuesday young people's group which my late daughter found needed died nine years ago. I've done work with the police, my work with health and then I got elected as chair of creative Medway in October because I was part of a core group of compact. It was an arts council funded project to bring the sort of cultural and creative sector together as part of implementing Medway's cultural strategy which we helped to kind of shape and develop and so yeah and then I've been recently elected as a non-executive director on the PlaySport, Medway's PlaySport as well so I've got that to add to my many many hats. How would you say Medway is doing as far as diversity and being culturally aware and how important has your role been in that and kind of changing things? When I moved here with my ex-husband and my children 24 years ago, I know those people who have lived here longer but it was very challenging. There wasn't much diversity in the school. My kids were probably one of about six children in the whole school and the racism here was much more overt. It was really really in our faces. People would call us names when we're walking down the street they had it in schools everywhere and I worked in places that couldn't even say the word black they couldn't describe me because they felt it was offensive. I think what Mac has been able to do is to drive significant change, is to encourage those conversations in a way that gets people thinking and reflecting. So Dr Carol, how do you think you're going to use that to do all of your benefits? I want to use it more to the community's benefit. I mean I'll still be Carol. I'm not going to insist on people calling me Dr. It'll look nice. Someone told me don't change you passport because when you go on a plane they'll think you're a real doctor. Of course you can't do that but I'm hoping it will start to open some doors for Mac and hopefully one day we'll have our own place, our own building to do the things that we want to do in the community. So I want to put it to some good use. The man who oversaw the transformation of Chatham's historic dockyard and the chief executive mid-kink college will also get awards the ceremonies taking place at Rochester Cathedral. Kent Online News. A former department store in Darford could be turned into a car-free village and cinema. Developers want to transform the old cooperative building on Spital Street into 24 houses, 14 masonets and 31 apartments. There would also be space for a multi-screen cinema, other businesses and community space. Another bank in Medway is closing its doors for the final time today. At West on Rainham High Street is the latest to suffer from a dropping customer footfall. Bosses say demand for the branch has reduced by 60% since 2019. Plans for 150 new homes next to Grove has roundabouts in Kemsley have been approved. The estate promises to deliver a wide range of homes that will help meet local housing needs. And a woman who runs a hedgehog rescue near Ashford says growing costs are making it increasingly difficult for them to help animals in need. Lisa Stewart started taking in poorly hedgehogs after finding one in her garden in Plutley and now has more than a hundred. Well, Thorne Hedgehog Rescue relies entirely on donations. It's one of only three dedicated rescue centres in Kent. Five others have been forced to close in the last couple of years. Well, Lisa has been telling reporter Chantal about what her typical day looks like. I had a call out at three o'clock this morning for a baby hedgehog in a respiratory distress that needed collecting from Medway. Obviously, that time of night, there's not many volunteer night hours. So, drove over there, picked the hedgehog up, got him back, got him treated and settled for the night, started my day at 5.30 a.m. with the first of the newborn babies that have to be fed every three hours. We start clean out around nine o'clock. So, the morning we'll be spent cleaning out, getting everything tidied up. We have all the inside hutches to clean out, all the outside hutches associated washing up and washing. The notes, all the hedgehogs need to be weighed every day, checked every day, made sure they're doing all very well. That runs if we have any injured ones that need veterinary treatment. So, we'll get vet trips organised, vet appointments organised, get those to and from the vet. Afternoon is mostly care. We have a lot of hedgehogs in with Ringworm, Mange, which need regular barfing, regular treatments and treating wounds and things like that. We run all our poo samples in the afternoon so that we can check for internal parasites within the hedgehogs that might be treated. So, that's more the clinical side. Moving into the evening is the evening feeds, making sure everybody's clean and comfortable, cleaning out again if they need it and medications in the evenings. And in between that, there's all the admin side, the social media, the accounts, essentially running a business and everything associated with that. Tip runs are in with their social media side, the events, the fundraising, the going out and doing talks. So, yeah, lots to do. And finally, you can follow Kent Online on socials to see footage of a woodpecker investigating a Ring doorbell near Maidstone. The bird was pecking at the lens outside a home in Boxley, the family who lived there, think he was reminding them to top up their bird feeders. He's been named Woody by the nine-year-old son. Kent Online Sports. Football and Jillingham have beaten up at 4-0 in a pre-season friendly Jaden Clark and youth team striker Harry Bridal scored two goals each at Prince's Park last night. We've been getting reaction from Jill's boss, Mark Bonner. I thought the first half was slow. I really enjoyed the first 15 minutes the second half, thought that was much much better intensity and tempo with the game. Probably a few technical errors in the first half. A little bit of that is it's a bit dry, it's a bit slow, it's a bit very different kind of game to the two that we've played. We know nothing about them before the game, so it's like the first type of game like that. So, there was probably just a few things we needed to do a bit better in the first half. I thought we'd be a bit of a better level than we were, but I thought we got better as it went on. Create one or two good moments in the game and made it tough for us in a few of the situations. Started the second half very well, much more intent, much more direction in our game and more options of who to play with. So, that was good and then they, the boys that did the 60 minutes, physically brilliant tonight because the game's a bit more open so you have some big distances to cover. So, we've ticked a good box there physically tonight and the lads that come on, it's a long old day and a long old night waiting to do 30 minutes at the end, but they've come on and done well and obviously the team just deal mix and match and we've got a few missing tonight. But, yeah, for everyone that was here, good, final problems, another night boxed off in pre-season before we get ready for Saturday, which we'll go. Some of the boys will do big minutes again and some of the ones that have done the smaller side of that tonight will do the bigger side Saturday. So, yeah, just another night in the picture of pre-season really. Chilling in, we'll be back in action for another pre-season friendly on Saturday as they take on South End United. Well, that's all from us for today. Thanks ever so much for listening. Don't forget, you can follow us on Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok and threads. You can also get details on the top stories, direct your email each morning via the briefing. To sign up to that, just head to kentonline.co.uk. News, you can trust. This is the Kent Online Podcast.
