Tuesday 22nd March 2011 Chatham Dockyard in World Heritage bid
Chatham’s historic dockyard has been included on a list of 11 sites
across the UK and its overseas territories vying for World Heritage
Site status. The dockyard joined forces with medway Council in 2007 in
a bid for the coveted status. The World heritage list is administered
by Unesco in an attempt to identify and protect important natural and
cultural sites worldwide. Medway Council said Chatham’s naval and
military installations played a crucial role and heritage director at
The Historic Dockyard Chatham Richard Holdsworth said the structures
were “incredibly important buildings” that helped make Britain. Kent

Monday 21st February 2011 £80,000 awarded to restore Eastgate House
Medway Council has received a £80,000 lottery grant to fund repairs to
an Elizabethan town house in Rochester that appeared in the work of
Charles Dickens. Repairs will be carried out at Eastgate House and
work will also turn it into an exhibition space. The grant will also
fund the restoration of the Dickens Chalet which stands in the
grounds. Built in the 1590s, Eastgate House features as the Nun's
House in Dickens's novel, The Pickwick Papers. Kent

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Facebook decrees there is only one Kate Middleton
A mother from Kent got a surprise when she tried to log in to Facebook
and was told the account had been closed as it was a ‘fake account’.
It seems Facebook thought the profile had been set up to impersonate
Prince William’s fiancee. Ms Middleton said: "I was quite shocked
because I'd started writing an e-mail to all my friends and went to
press send and it came up to say I had to login. I logged in and it
came up to say I was a fake and my account had been disabled. They
said I couldn't use my name because I was impersonating someone
famous, which I'm not, as I am Kate Middleton." Facebook admitted it
occasionally made a mistake and would try and resolve the issue. Kent

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Arrests follow meerkat theft
A male meerkat that was stolen from Wingham Wildlife Park in Kent on
December, 29, 2010 subsequently died after being hit by a car. Two
people have been arrested regarding the theft and bailed pending
further inquiries. Police said a 47-year-old woman and an 18-year-old
man, both from Sandwich, were questioned on suspicion of theft and
possession of drugs. The unfortunate creature was found dead in a dog
waste bin in Sandwich after a member of the public reported seeing it
hit by a car. Kent

Friday 31st December 2010 14 year-old falls into frozen pond
A 14-year-old girl who ventured onto a frozen pond to rescue her
mobile phone almost paid for her stupidity with her life. The girl had
to be rescued from the middle of the frozen pond in Tonbridge, Kent
after the ice started to crack. She was plunged into the frozen water
when the ice gave way but managed to cling to the roots of a tree on
an island in the middle of the pond. A local resident heard her
screams and rushed to her aid, throwing her a rope. Fire crews wearing
dry suits subsequently managed to rescue the girl who was taken to
hospital suffering from hypothermia and shock. Kent

Thursday 22nd July 2010 ‘Lost' damselfly back in UK
The dainty damselfly, which has been absent from Britain for nearly 60 years, has turned up in North Kent. The blue coloured insect, a smaller relative of dragonflies, was washed away from its habitat, a single East Anglian pond, during the severe coastal floods of 1952/3. Conservationists think the damselfly have come to the UK riding on the wind from France or Belgium. They are hoping that the insect will re-establish itself in this country. “Next year we would be looking for evidence that they have bred successfully in Britain” said Dave Smallshire of the British Dragonfly Society. Kent

Monday 28th June 2010 Efforts to save Dickens’ chalet
A group of fundraisers are hoping to raise enough cash to save the
wooden chalet in which Charles Dickens wrote some of his most famous
works. The Rochester and Chatham Dickens Fellowship wants to raise
£100,000 to repair the chalet, which has fallen into disrepair and are
planning to hold a charity garden party to help raise funds. Visitors
are being asked to dress in Victorian costume for a party which will
be held at the chalet on 3 July. The chalet, used as a study by
Dickens, once stood in the grounds of his house at Higham. In 1864 it
was dismantled and moved to the council gardens of Eastgate House,
Rochester. The building has already undergone two restorations but it
is hoped to restore and reopen it in time for the 200th anniversary of
Dickens' birth in 2012. Kent

Friday 2nd April 2010 Kent man’s pothole road sign removed
Police have ordered a Kent plumber to take down a home-made sign
warning motorists of potholes in the road. The police claimed the
sign, erected by Ted Relf outside his home at Shadoxhurst near
Ashford, would distract motorists.

Mr Relf grew so frustrated with what he saw as a lack of action and
sub-standard repair work by the local highways authority. Mr Relf told
the press: "I was a bit annoyed because police time and resources were
being used to investigate a trivial matter. The police told me it was
a distraction but I pointed to the potholes and said that they were
too. Making people aware of the potholes is a serious issue. It's just
stupid to think that someone would complain about a sign." Kent

Wednesday 23rd December 2009 Christmas surprise gets family’s seal of approval
When a young lady called Miss Dwyer went to investigate what her
collie dog Jack was barking at she couldn’t have imagined what awaited
her in the garden. Miss Dwyer went to her parent’s fish pond, where
Jack was making a fuss, and found a baby seal pup! The pup got the
family’s seal of approval when they described it as “a brilliant
Christmas present”.

The seal pup has been named Gulliver because he had travelled 18 miles
inland to end up on the Dwyer’s garden pond in Benenden in Kent on
Monday. The RSPCA are now caring for the Gulliver who they say is less
than a year old. Pups often become separated from their mothers in
storms and it is thought that Gulliver made her way inland via the
River Rother, which meets the English Channel at Rye. Kent

Friday 20th November 2009 Kent households have contaminated water
The residents of Eynsford in kent have been warned to boil their water
by the Sevenoaks Council after they carried out routine tests on the
village’s water supply. The tests revealed the presence of bacteria in
the supply which originates at the Lullingstone Water Company. There
have been no reports of illness caused by the water and now the
council is working closely with the firm to determine the cause fo the
contamination. Lullingstone Water Company declined to comment when
approached by the BBC regarding the water problem.

A council issued a statement saying: "As part of Sevenoaks District
Council's routine sampling of the water supply, some naturally
occurring bacteria was found to have contaminated a private water
supply in the Lullingstone area.” Kent