The warnings had been coming in all day from agencies and local government, but that final update phone call I received at 2am on the morning of December 26th 2013 did nothing to prepare me for the events of the days and weeks that followed.
Whenever I speak with people who live, work or travel through the Allington and Barming wards of Maidstone, which is frequently, it is never long before the conversation turns to the adverse consequences of overdevelopment around Hermitage Lane.
I don’t venture to compare this past year with the Luftwaffe blitz of WWII, but in my lifetime this is as close as I’ve come to witnessing a war in England’s green and pleasant land; the enemy all about, everything shut down, many people dying and sick, health and emergency services stretched to
The best way to beat this virus, once and for all, is through the widespread vaccination of our population. I am therefore hugely encouraged by the speed at which the vaccine is being rolled out across Maidstone and The Weald; providing hope to our community after such a difficult year.
Kent, controversially, entered Tier 3 restrictions after the November national lockdown, but sadly the latest figures and trends are vindicating that course of action.
At a roundtable meeting convened by Maidstone & The Weald MP Helen Grant on Monday 7th December, the Minister of State for Rail pledged to bring forward a reliable date for the delivery of the long-awaited City Thameslink Service from Maidstone East in early 2021.