Some areas left with little or no water, forcing schools to shut and residents to fetch drinking water from bottle stations
A hosepipe ban is scheduled to come into effect across Kent and Sussex as a result of record demand for drinking water, South East Water bosses have said.
Parts of the region have been left with little or no water this week during the hot weather, forcing schools to shut and residents to fetch drinking water from bottled water stations.
Continue reading...Chief inspector of immigration says there is ‘real danger’ that inhumane and dangerous conditions will return at Kent facility
Suella Braverman is facing the “real danger” that conditions for asylum seekers held at Manston processing facility will once again become inhumane and dangerous, the immigration watchdog has found.
David Neal, the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, said the Kent asylum centre that became overcrowded and disease-ridden last year could again become overwhelmed because ministers and officials in the Home Office are unable to say where they plan to house at least 55,000 arrivals by small boats this year.
Continue reading...Police say man and woman admitted to hospital with serious injuries after incident in Dartford
Two people were shot at a house in Kent in what witnesses described as a “chilling” hostage situation involving a standoff with police.
The incident in Priory Road, Dartford, happened on Saturday afternoon. Kent police said a man and a woman were admitted to hospital with serious injuries consistent with gunshot wounds. They remain in a serious condition.
Continue reading...Investigation reveals that at least 440 people appear to have been abandoned in the weeks before the worst Channel disaster in 30 years
• Read more: ‘Horror beyond words’: how Channel distress calls were ‘ignored’
Hundreds of vulnerable migrants were abandoned to their fates after the UK coastguard “effectively ignored” reports of small boats in distress during the days leading up to the worst Channel disaster in 30 years when at least 27 people died, an Observer investigation suggests.
Around 440 people appear to have been left adrift after the coastguard sent no rescue vessels to 19 reported boats carrying migrants in UK waters, according to an analysis of internal records and marine data seen by the Observer and Liberty Investigates.
Experts said the failure to act appears to breach international law.
Continue reading...Investigation reveals that understaffed Dover control room was overwhelmed by calls from people in trouble before 27 died at sea
• Read more: UK coastguard ‘left Channel migrants adrift’
On the afternoon of 3 November 2021, a woman called Hampshire police. Her brother was crossing the Channel in a small boat that day, she said via a translator. But something awful had just happened. Twenty minutes earlier he’d texted to say that smugglers had begun shoving passengers overboard. “Loads had been kicked off and were in the water”, fighting for their lives in the treacherous currents of the world’s busiest shipping lane.
Police passed the details to HM Coastguard and at 4.57pm an operator flagged the incident, according to internal logs obtained by the Observer and Liberty Investigates.
Continue reading...Kentish Wine Vault aims to transform industry and produce English rival to prosecco
A landmark centre for English wine designed by Norman Foster, which supporters say will produce an affordable rival to prosecco, could be given planning approval within days.
Gary Smith, the chief executive of MDCV UK, the winemaker behind the £30m Kentish Wine Vault project, said he was hopeful about his plans to transform the country’s wine sector by producing 5m bottles of English wine a year at the new location, after months of doubt.
Continue reading...School holiday delays of up to 14 hours blamed on ‘French border processes and sheer volume’
Extra sailings are to run overnight at the Port of Dover to try to clear a backlog that left passengers stuck in Easter school-holiday traffic for hours on Saturday.
A spokesperson for the port, which declared a critical incident on Friday, said it was hoping to clear the backlog by lunchtime on Sunday as some travellers said they had been held up for 14 hours.
Continue reading...Morning is Broken appeared on a wall of a building on Blacksole Farm, Herne Bay, since destroyed
Banksy’s latest work, on the side of a derelict farmhouse in the seaside town of Herne Bay in Kent, has been demolished.
The mural, titled Morning is Broken, depicted a silhouetted young boy next to a cat in a window, opening corrugated iron curtains.
Continue reading...Some of the over 1,450 people brought by AG Recruitment owed thousands to unlicensed brokers
A British recruitment agency that brought Indonesian farmworkers to the UK who had debts of thousands of pounds to foreign brokers has lost its licence as a seasonal worker sponsor.
More than 1,450 Indonesians were brought to Britain last year by AG Recruitment to pick berries and other fruits to supply British supermarkets.
Continue reading...Unknown patterns found on ceramics from Josephine Willis, which collided with steamer in 1856
The wreck of a mid-19th century sailing ship transporting British people to New Zealand and with a cargo of exceptionally rare ceramics onboard has been listed for protection 167 years after it sank off the Kent coast.
The Josephine Willis wooden packet boat, built in Limehouse and launched in 1854 by HH Willis & Co, foundered four miles (6.4km) south of Folkestone harbour following a collision with the steamer Mangerton on 3 February 1856, with the loss of 70 lives including Captain Edward Canney. The ship lies in two parts on the seabed, 23 metres deep.
Continue reading...Exclusive: military veterans’ group RE:ACT gets £200,000 yearly contract to ensure welfare of lorry drivers gridlocked in Kent
The government has signed a £200,000-a-year contract with a disaster response charity established by the former head of Britain’s armed forces to help drivers stuck in lorry queues in Kent.
The Department for Transport has enlisted RE:ACT, which uses military veterans to distribute humanitarian aid in war zones and following natural disasters, amid concerns over driver welfare.
Continue reading...Major search and rescue operation continues after HM Coastguard received reports of an incident at 3.40am on Wednesday
At least three people have died and 43 people have been rescued after trying to cross the Channel in freezing conditions overnight, according to reports.
A member of a rescue team confirmed to Sky News that at least three people have died, as a major search and rescue operation continues off the coast of Kent. “Many” were rescued from the water, according to BBC reporter, Simon Jones, adding a small number are confirmed dead.
Continue reading...Apparent vacating of Home Office site follows series of concerns including over outbreak of diphtheria
Manston asylum centre, the troubled Home Office site in Kent where people arriving in the UK in small boats are taken for initial checks, is understood to be completely empty, the Guardian has learned.
Just a few weeks ago about 4,000 arrivals were placed there by the Home Office, almost three times the maximum 1,600 capacity of the tented site in Ramsgate.
Continue reading...Two Afghans tell of how they were taken from Manston centre and left without accommodation or money
People taken from Manston immigration holding centre have described their dismay at being deposited late at night in central London, without accommodation, appropriate clothing or money.
Amid growing controversy over the circumstances in which large numbers of people were bussed out of the acutely overcrowded camp, the Home Office has insisted that it only released asylum seekers who told staff that they had family or friends they could stay with.
Continue reading...Young girl in overcrowded Kent processing centre throws note over fence pleading for help and comparing facilities to prison
The Home Office is removing 600 people every day from a controversial processing centre in Kent amid growing concerns over the mental health of people detained for weeks in cramped and unhygienic conditions.
After an outcry at the treatment of asylum seekers at Manston processing centre, the local MP, Roger Gale, has been told by ministers that the total number held within the facility will be cut from 4,100 on Monday to 1,500 by the weekend.
Continue reading...Immigration minister says number of people at Kent processing centre has fallen substantially
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Hundreds of migrants have been moved out of an immigration centre in Kent amid concerns it had become dangerously overcrowded.
The immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, said the number of people at the Manston migrant processing centre had fallen substantially on Tuesday, with more expected to be moved on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Additional requirements would be time-consuming and threaten capacity, Dover port boss says
Post-Brexit Channel border delays could multiply from next May, with a five-person vehicle being held for up to 10 minutes if the EU goes ahead with a planned biometric entry system, the Port of Dover has said.
The entry-exit system (EES), which is due to start in May 2023, will require all non-EU nationals to register their fingerprints and be photographed before entering the bloc.
Continue reading...Unusually the violet helleborine is only pollinated by wasps and is thriving thanks to nectar that is irresistible to the insects
A rare orchid that reproduces by getting wasps drunk is thriving in the gardens of Charles Darwin’s house after a two-year restoration programme.
The violet helleborine is entirely pollinated by wasps, which are usually not perceived to be the best pollinators. They’re regimented and meticulously clean themselves, scientists say, which makes the process of pollination a fairly futile prospect – there’s nothing for the pollen to cling to.
Continue reading...As farms look further afield for labour, investigation finds Kent pickers saying they struggle to pay fees charged by unlicensed brokers
Indonesian labourers picking berries on a farm that supplies Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Tesco say they have been saddled with debts of up to £5,000 by unlicensed foreign brokers to work in Britain for a single season.
Pickers at the farm in Kent were initially given zero-hours contracts, and at least one was paid less than £300 a week after the cost of using a caravan was deducted, according to payslips and other documents seen as part of a Guardian investigation.
Continue reading...Drawn to the prospect of a job abroad, people such as Banyu signed up to a language course. From there, their debts to brokers grew
Sitting in a caravan in the hot Kent countryside, Banyu’s face is etched with worry. It is July and he is less than a month into a job picking fruit at Clock House farm near Maidstone, which supplies strawberries, raspberries and other soft fruit to leading supermarket chains.
He says he arrived from Indonesia this summer £5,000 in debt to an unlicensed broker in Bali, handing over the deeds to his family home as surety. He only has a six-month visa for the picking season and is scared that the work is not as lucrative as he hoped.
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