Kent Online

1 day ago | kentonline.co.uk | Daniel Esson

Kent County Council’s new Reform UK leadership has requested a four-month extension to an “almost impossible” deadline for the reorganisation of local government. Under the government’s plans, Kent is set to see the largest shakeup since current authorities were created in 1974. Currently under the ‘two-tier’ system, the county has 12 district and borough councils, which split responsibility for public services with the overarching KCC.

1 day ago | kentonline.co.uk | Daniel Esson

At the start of this week, Kent County Council was officially made the test tube for Reform UK’s Doge (Department of Government Efficiency). Explicitly modelled on the US version headed by Elon Musk until very recently, the organisation was meant to root out the profligacy and waste the party views as endemic to the public sector. However, both the Doge across the pond and the one probing County Hall have lost key figures in recent days, leaving the future of the project up in the air.

1 day ago | kentonline.co.uk | Julia Roberts

But Canterbury Crown Court heard that although he immediately apologised, when neighbours burst in having been alerted by Ms Robbins screams, he told them they were "just playing" and it was an accident. His lies continued following his arrest by denying he had been with his girlfriend that day and that she had concocted details of the assault. Then, even after he had admitted his guilt in court almost four years later, he falsely accused her of having attacked him with a knife.

2 days ago | kentonline.co.uk | Dee Lukasik

A cancer patient says she has been left “distressed and hounded” by a parking firm after stopping at a hotel to recover from the shock of a life-changing hospital diagnosis. Áine Alam had just been told she had malignant cancer and would need urgent, life-saving surgery when she left an appointment at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury on March 19.

2 days ago | kentonline.co.uk | Chris Britcher

If you want to make an impact as a restaurant, why not cook up a storm inside a motionless red double-decker bus? It’s an idea Margate has embraced to the extent there are two such vehicles bookending its golden sandy beach doing just that. I’ve reviewed the one next to the decaying Nayland Rock Hotel in the past (spoiler alert: it was fantastic) so it was about time I bought a ticket to ride the one nestled inside the Old Kent Market.