A teacher who paid £2.50 to park at a country park is being threatened with court action from debt collectors.
The operators of the car park at Lullingstone Country Park say he didn't have a valid ticket and are chasing him for payment of a £140 fine.
Also in today’s podcast, a cannabis smoker spotted driving slowly along a village road claimed she was trying to avoid a large bird after being pulled over by police.
The 40-year-old also admitted to officers she had cannabis in the car.
Administrators of a former leisure centre say building homes on the site cannot be ruled out - as the community fights to get the facility reopened.
Folkestone Sports Centre shut suddenly last month after the charity which ran it said it could no longer afford to remain operational.
A derelict seaside shelter that has become a magnet for anti-social behaviour could be given a new lease of life as an outdoor dining space with live music.
The restaurant tycoon behind the refurb of Marina’s Cafe in Margate is hoping to take on the site.
And as the Paralympics get underway in Paris tonight you can hear from a Kent athlete who’s hoping to make it on the podium this time around.
Long Jump competitor and 100m sprinter finished Zak Skinner finished 4th at the Tokyo Olympics in the long jump, missing out on a medal by just 3 centimetres.
We're going to take a look at what you're going to do next. Kent online news news you can trust. This is the Kent online podcast. Kate Faulkner. Hello hope you're OK. Thank you for downloading today's podcast on Tuesday, the 28th of August coming up today. We have an update on the Folkestone Sports Center after it closed suddenly last month. And we'll also hear from a marine conservation group about the amount of dolphins and all of a sudden we're going to see what we're going to do next month. We'll see what happens. 50 to park at a country park is being threatened with court action from debt collectors. Tom Green had a meeting in Lullingstone country park in Ainsford in February to discuss a charity event for his school when he tried to pay the meter. The screen was blank, but he eventually made a payment using his phone and a ticket was issued that he displayed in his windscreen. A few weeks later, he received a 35 pound fine for not having a valid ticket six months after he's been sent three letters from debt recovery plus threatening court action. He's been speaking to our reporter Ellie Hodgson for the podcast. When I first got the initial charge or the initial 35 pound fine, I thought, well, this isn't a problem. I've got the evidence that I paid. I'm sure that my appeal will work. I also included why I was there and charity. So I thought that it would be there would be a sort of reasonable balanced response. But I was pretty worried about the idea of doing something on behalf of my school and ending up with a charge for it. I'm also just a teacher. So, you know, you could throw your shoulders and say, well, 35 pounds is neither here nor there. But it is. It's a significant amount of money. You fast forward it to it being 140 and the threat of it being another up to 235. I think the next one was. Without being melodramatic, it has caused me stress during the holidays because I'm getting these repeated letters. With debt recovery plus I tried, you were able to call them and have conversations and I have had conversations with them three times now. And they actually have seemed reasonable and including the first person that I spoke to agreed that there seemed to be my case seemed a little strange because it was clear that I had evidence that I paid. So she referred it back to Euro car parts and then my second conversation it sounded as though she'd been told that that was not appropriate because she was new to the company. So, you know, even they acknowledge that it's not something that should be happening. I've found that, you know, I've found myself thinking, well, let's just get this out of the way and perhaps just pay it because then, you know, it's gone. But I don't think it's fair. I've done nothing wrong. I don't think it's fair to both myself and other people who might well have been put in this position to just ignore it. It feels like a company that's bullying its way to taking money. Euro car parks who manage the site has been contacted for a comment. Kent Online News. As well, Councilor has appeared in court accused of sexual offences dating back almost 40 years. James Hall, who represents the Merston Ward in Sittingborne, has pleaded not guilty to 31 charges. Some of them against children. The 75 year old who lives in Tung Road in Merston has been released on bail ahead of a hearing in October. A prison workshop instructor from Medway is due in court accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a convicted murderer. 33 year old Haley Jones from Peter Barragadans in Strewd has been charged with misconduct. She's due in court alongside 31 year old Jordan McSweeney, who's serving a life sentence for the first time in the last 20 years. In the last 20 years, she's been out of Zara Alina in Ilford in 2022. A drug driver has tried to blame a large bird on the road as the reason behind her bizarre driving in hauling. Amy Gregory was pulled over after being spotted driving slowly down the high street in March. She later tested positive for cannabis. The 40 year old who lives in the high street was banned from driving for 12 months in order to pay more than 340 pounds. Video at Kent Online will be posted on Twitter at Fox News 8 News.com. We're talking about a national packaging company. Palestine Action used a hammer to smash their way into kite packaging's regional distribution center in Sheppy way in bobbing. The group say the company is working with Elbit in Strewd, who they have accused of sending military equipment to Israel. Administrators brought in following the sudden closure of folks and sports center say they've seen encouraging interest from potential buyers. The community were left in shock when the facility closed in the first place. And I think that's what we're talking about. That's what we're talking about. What we're talking about is from opus business advisory group. He says they've been approached by a number of parties. All our focus is on finding a leisure center operator to take this this site on. But there is this problem that as administrators we have an obligation to take the best offer for the creditors may not necessarily be the highest offer, but certainly the best offer. That's our legal obligation. It's enshrined in law. And so there is this sort of conundrum that we face that we fully understand that this is a huge interest to the community. I mean, this center's been there 50 years. It plays a huge role, partly role in the health and well-being of awful people in and around Fixton. So we've got that. But if we arrive at this point where the highest offer and the best offer is from a developer, well, then these covenants and legal opinion will come into play. Because clearly there is this sort of awful tragedy that if we can't find a buyer to operate the site, but we can't select to a developer, then one way or another, that's not an outcome that anybody wants because what nobody wants is a derelict site sitting there not doing anything for the community in one way or another. So that's really where we're at at the moment. We're in that period where the administrators have done all the front end administrative stuff, secured the site. We're keeping the pools maintained so that it can be reopened quickly when we find an operator for it. So we're doing all of that. We're liaising with the district council, with the town council, with the local MP, and those discussions continue and are entirely hardly as I'm delighted to say. Huge help from all of them. So that's brilliant. And now we're in this sort of period where our specialist agents are marketing the site, putting together the sales pack. That'll be going out to his parties pretty soon. And we would hope that if the initial interest that we've had turns into serious interest and we can verify, because one of the most important things you have to do as administrators is it's no good wasting your time and money on time-westers. So we have to verify due diligence that the buyers who say there can actually perform. So that's another process. Timing of coming up with an answer here, who knows? We would hope to be at a bit of stage, probably in the next four weeks or so. And then you're in a process which will involve the lawyers and, you know, crossing an awful lot of teas and dotting a lot of eyes. The land it sits on comes with an agreement that it will only be used for recreational purposes, but Nick couldn't rule out that it may eventually be sold to a developer. It comes as folks have come up with us, but Chairman Ian Hals has assured their 300 members they are working to get everyone swimming together again. I'd just like to say to our members that we are doing everything humanly possible to try and get back to our home of functional support centre. However, in the meantime, we will make sure we can get as many of you swimming as soon as possible so that we can get to the local area. This isn't an easy task, it's full space in the local area is difficult to find. We've identified various options which we are still exploring. Obviously, we've got the three senior squads back in the pool already. Yesterday we managed to get swimmers into the Juka Yook pool, which whilst that is not the same as our own facilities, we are actually getting out from a city. One of the things we want to do though is get the whole club swimming again. To that end we are exploring various different options and whilst we won't all be together swimming at the same time as we have in the previous iterations of the club, we will get you all swimming again. It's important to note that we are not giving up on getting back to our home pool. There are actions going on in different locations and pressuring those that need pressure, put on them to actually try and get us back in as soon as possible. But until such time as the pool, folks can become available again, we will continue to train as of where we can. Just keep the club alive and make sure that our athletes are getting the best that we can provide at any time. More than 8,000 people have now signed a petition calling online news. Kent Mann is among four people jailed for forging more than 2,000 marriage certificates allowing people to live in the UK illegally. The home office says they were part of an organised criminal group who exploited vulnerable people to make money. A 41-year-old from Gravesend has been locked up for six years. A fundraiser has been set up for a 12-year-old girl who suffered life-changing injuries in a crash between a 2,000-year-old girl who has been set up for more than 100,000 pounds has been raised to help with ongoing care and recovery. A 33-year-old man was arrested over the collision and has been released on bail. Four people have been charged after a violent attack outside a pub in Maidstone. A man was headbutted stamped on and hit with a glass bottle at Earl Street earlier this month. He has since been discharged from hospital. The residents are calling for more independent powers on things like housing, policing, health care and transport. Our reporter Cara Simmons has spoken to Nicki Trowar who runs the Sheppy Action Group on Facebook. I think we are about 24 issues that we've tried to tackle and that's not just real. That is also with KCC. So the problem that we're having or that we still currently have is that whenever you try to highlight the issue it is then you know they're passing the buck between "oh it's not our job to do that" it's swells you know when it's KCC we go to and they'll say "no it's swells" and it or they'll turn around and say "actually that issue goes to your parish and town councilors" which a lot has actually came back doing that and we're going to them and then they're saying "oh no actually it's not us" and we're like "well something just fix the either fix it or you remove it or you replace it" but not asking a lot you know and because nothing positive has ever came from any of the issues and the emails that we have presented it's now got to a point where residents are padding off and they won't change. Do you think the island has different needs as well to sit and burn and clavish and oh yeah yeah yeah I think the island's unique and I'm not just saying that because I love it here but not I really do I think it's a unique place and any island I think is unique or needs are different although it's a smaller population from sitting born or or babish and more or may zone you know it's a smaller population but it's still it's still a community. What sort of needs is slightly different than to the mainland would you say? I would say a hospital for one and it's not been used to its fuel potential. We could have an A&E up there but we keep getting told there's no funds for it. So why not put a mobile A&E unit up there you know I like what they do do one down at Tesco don't know for emergency doctor appointments and things like that I've seen do something like that or pleasing. There's another one. We were told we're getting five police officers allocated island pair of wards now there's six to me that according to the other day there's actually six words well there's six parish councils and town councils but swale county is only five wards. So to me that's not adequate you know we need to fuel time police station on this island and I think that's one of the things we need to do. We don't want to do that. We need to do that. We're struggling financially and any changes would be down to the government. Kent online news. One person has been arrested after a police pursued through sheerness officers were called to reports of someone causing damage to a pub in lays down road last Thursday night. A van fled the scene and was charged by the police. The police chose to force this autumn for passengers travelling to the EU. An extra 10 million pounds has been announced by the government to try and prevent disruption. Investigations are underway following a suspicious house fire in sheerness. The blaze broke out in a building in Alexandra street last Tuesday night. It's thought to have been empty for the last 10 years. It's thought to have been planned to come to tackle anti-social behavior by making offenders pay back to the community within 48 hours of being caught. The government's now decided not to choose Kent as a location for the pilot scheme. Kent online news. Members of a marine conservation charity say the stretch of water between Dover and Calais has become a hot spot for whales and dolphins. The first year of the year is the first year of the year. In total this year across all of the DFDS roots, so New Haven D.E.P. but also Dover Calais and Newcastle Amsterdam as well. We surveyed over 56,000 kilometres of waters. So that's sailing backwards and forwards our volunteer teams going on board and searching for whales, dolphins and porpoises. It's about 600 individual animals and that's five different species as well. So it just goes to show how rich the waters around our coastline are for these incredible animals, which I don't think a lot of people know or appreciate. What makes them so rich? What makes them so attractive to whales and dolphins? So these waters are, well, really diverse. We have a variety of different species that we see a lot of whales and dolphins all around the coast of the UK. But in the English channel it's quite tricky to know if these numbers are going up or going down, there's various different reasons why that might be, which we can talk about in a minute. But yes, just these animals live in these really rich waters, which is fantastic. And what would be some of the most exciting things? So it's quite a tricky one to answer and it's quite complex as well, but quite simply put it's something that does require a bit more analysis and investigations, which we will be doing in due time. But we've had a really large increase in the amount of harbour porpoise sightings on the Dover to Calais route and that route actually we know is now a hotspot for these animals. They're like dolphins but a bit smaller and they're a little bit different. A bit trickier to spot as well because they're quite shy and quite small. But you know, possible explanations for this are sort of there's the relatively fast flows through the Strait of Dover creating quite nice feeding opportunities, there's quite a lot of nutrient upwellings there, as well as we know that their prey species live there, so they like to feed on species like it's often linked to prey. We've also recorded for the first time the minky whale, which is a species of baleen whale, they've got about 10 metres long, so they're a large animal, but quite small compared to other larger whales, like the blue whale, which is over three times as big. And again, we think that's linked to the prey availability as well, but what we really need to highlight here is that future monitoring is really crucial to continue to learn more and see if we spot minky whales this year and next year and whether that's increasing or not, so it could be just a rare sighting, but hopefully it means that they are abundant in this area because minky whales are quite common, a little bit further up in the North Sea, we spot them quite a lot on the Newcastle to Amsterdam route with the FGS as well. There are plans to turn a derelict Victorian shelter on Margate Seafront into an outdoor dining space, the 70,000 pound re-furb of Marina's Cafe says the site on Marine Drive is only attracting troublemakers, his idea is to transform the space with music, festoon lights and pop-up events. Whitstable Rock's Oyster Festival will be back for another year, organised to say the event was never in doubt, despite the dates only being confirmed last week, the three day celebration of the historic Oyster industry will include a food and drink festival which is a spin-off, have been filmed near Tundridge Wells, production crews for The Rings of Power use sandstone formations at the High Rocks and Harrison's Rocks as some of their locations, season two is out tomorrow. Ken's online, sports. Tennis now and Ken's Emma Radikano has been knocked out in the first round of the US Open, the former champion lost in three sets to American Sophia Kennan at the Grand Slam in New York overnight, and a Kent-born Paralympian has been telling us how his first coach set him up for a big jump competitor and 100 metres sprint up. He finished fourth at the Tokyo Games in the long jump, missing out on a medal by just three centimetres. He grew up in Tundridge and says he still feels a strong connection to where his athletics journey began. Very excited. I think it's the Olympics has made it seem like the last few weeks have dragged out even further, but I'm just excited to get out there now. I've got a couple more weeks of prep and then it's all guns blazing for the big competitions. And it's your second Paralympics now. Does that add more pressure? Oh, I don't know. I don't think -- I haven't felt like it's added more pressure. I think it's made me more well prepared and I think because of where I placed in Tokyo, it's made me probably hungrier and added more fuel to my fire to make sure I don't finish fourth again. Yeah, you just missed out on it by a fraction. How did that feel in the moment? Is that, like you said, just done everything to spur you all now for this Paralympics? Yeah, I think initially I didn't really process it very well, and I think it probably sat with me for longer than it should. But I think once I got over sort of in what I had probably seen as like a huge failure to be that close and still not come away with something for me now, it's just -- it's made me realize how terrible it feels to come forth. So I just want to make sure I get out and do my best to win the competition, to be honest. And it's an important conversation to have. The mental effect it can have on you when you finish just so close to the mark and it can be really heartbreaking to then and difficult to pick yourself back up and carry on going. Yeah, sport is brutal and athletics can be really cruel, I think. And unfortunately it's like this double-edged sword where like the lows outweigh the highs and the highs outweigh the lows. But then once you achieve that, it's a truly exceptional feeling and it's one I'm hoping to achieve later this summer. How do you keep connected to where you're from and keep that support I suppose, really close to you when you're in places like Paris? Yeah, I think it's about Tumbridge and I wouldn't have even got into the sport. I have a great athletics club which I just walked to after school was vital. I still speak to my first coach, David Hull, and he basically set up everything that is happening right now. So for him it's great to keep in contact with him and still pick his brains on certain things and that training group are still close friends and I still feel very well connected to sort of where my athletics journey began. I still like to do things with them and the support they offer me is great. So yeah, I think coming from such a supportive and well-networked background has really helped craft me into the athlete I am now. He's in Paris, ready to represent Team GB in the Paralympic Games. The opening ceremony is tonight. Zach has also featured in a Channel 4 documentary called "The Path to Paris" which follows athletes as they prepare for the games. His episode is now available to stream. For us 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 the details on the top stories direct to your email each morning via the briefing to sign up. Just head to KentOnline.co.uk News you can trust. This is the Kent Online Podcast. [MUSIC PLAYING] [ Silence ]
