Catch up with all the latest news from across the county with Kristin Hawthorne.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Kent Tonight live on KMTV.
00:29I'm Kristen Hawthorne and here are your top stories on Monday the 10th of March.
00:35Bollard backlash. Kent Online finds discrepancies in Canterbury's terrorist security system.
00:42Searching in Strood. Emergency services search near the River Medway for a person suspected
00:47to have fallen in. And how much? Swale Council spends upwards of £21,000 on 60 new chairs.
00:57Serious flaws in an anti-terror security system designed to protect Canterbury's city centre
01:02from hostile vehicle attack have been exposed by a KM Group investigation. From buyers being
01:08left open for hours at a time to one of our reporters being able to take a car into the
01:12city centre without any questions asked. The city's council since have been forced to
01:18take action. But despite launching what it has called an urgent investigation and retraining
01:23staff on proper protocols, our reporters were still able to find issues persisting. Bartholomew
01:29Hall has more. This is the moment a Kent Online reporter was able to drive through Canterbury's
01:37anti-terror bollards with no questions asked. Thank you. Installed in 2020 and costing more
01:50than £750,000, these electronic gateways were designed to protect the city centre from
01:56vehicle attacks. Since then, they've become notorious for images like this of cars becoming
02:02impaled, often due to following too closely behind another. They're supposed to stay raised
02:0724-7, lowered only briefly for authorised access. But since January of this year, our
02:14investigation frequently found them left open, sometimes for hours. During the day, only
02:19residents and emergency vehicles can enter the city centre, but before 10.30 and after
02:244pm, permission is extended to delivery drivers and contractors. However, when our reporter
02:29drove up at just after 10am in January, the bollards were lowered before he even had a
02:34chance to say why he wanted to get through. The council told us it's hugely disappointed
02:40a staff member failed to follow protocol before going on to apologise and saying that all
02:44staff are being retrained. It's also told us it's worked with the manufacturer regularly
02:49to fix reliability issues, calling the bollards complex machinery prone to the occasional
02:54fault. But despite the apology, several sites continued to be seen out of action. On two
03:01more visits to the bollards, our reporter was again able to access the zone with full
03:05stories without being asked for his name, registration or destination address. Package
03:11to deliver in Mercery Lane. Hello, I've got a Tesco delivery for a resident. Please make
03:17sure you're out by 10.30 because after that is a pedestrian zone, my friend. Okay, thank
03:21you. No, it's fine. Just wait for the bollards to go all the way down and the green light
03:25to come on then. Thank you. In response, we were told our reporter had given perfectly
03:30legitimate reasons for entry and that these days deliveries can be made by all different
03:35types of vehicles. Despite this, some businesses say they're concerned about how worthwhile
03:40the bollards even are. Considering it was here for anti-terrorism, now it is very easy
03:46to come into town centre. I think sometimes the bollards are down, so it allows vehicles
03:51to actually come up and down the street, even though it's one way. There's not many checks
03:55involved, no number plate recognition or anything like that. You can literally claim to be anybody
03:59and they'll give you access into the town centre. We also found the council spent £80,000
04:05on maintaining the bollards since 2023, which is up more than £40,000 on the three years
04:11before. So whilst the city is addressing its security concerns, it seems the bollards remain
04:16a costly burden to maintain. Bartholomew Hall for KMTV in Canterbury.
04:25So we posted this story on our TikTok earlier today, just this morning, and it's got a lot
04:30of different views. Can you tell us more about that? Yeah, Kristen, it's like you say, we
04:34put that video out on our TikTok and it's already got 300,000 views. And some of the
04:39comments have been quite interesting to see what people make of the situation. Now, before
04:43we discuss them, I want to preface that these aren't our opinions. We're just showing what
04:48people make of the whole situation and the issue at heart. Now, this first commenter
04:52suggested that other cities might adopt Canterbury's system, making all city centres exclusively
04:58pedestrianised or made for walking, which is an interesting one. Others have commented
05:02on the cost of the bollard at £750,000 as being a bit too much, while others aren't
05:08really convinced that there's enough of a terrorist threat to have warranted their construction
05:12in the first place. And for people who maybe didn't catch it from the story that we've
05:17just seen, what did Canterbury City Council have in response? They released a statement
05:22on the situation saying they're hugely disappointed that a member of the team didn't follow the
05:26correct procedures and can only apologise to the public. We've had a large number of
05:31meetings with the manufacturer, having said that the bollards are a complex piece of mechanical
05:35machinery and the occasional problem is inevitable. Thank you, Finn. To find out the importance
05:42of the security in the city, Bartholomew Hall also spoke to Chris Phillips, the former head
05:46of the National Counter-Security Terrorism Office, on the Kent Morning Show earlier today.
05:52So disappointing that huge amounts of money have been spent on protecting the public,
05:59and then because they're not operated properly, they're not being used properly, that effectively
06:04is wiped out. It's such a waste of time and money. We've seen instances of, and it's shocking
06:11to think about, of cars being driven into crowds even as early as this month over in
06:17Germany. These sort of systems are crucial in today's modern age, aren't they? Well,
06:24certainly you have iconic locations, and of course Canterbury is an iconic location, and
06:29iconic locations are being attacked, whether it's Christmas markets, whether it's New Orleans,
06:35in Bourbon Street. These locations are chosen by terrorists because they are iconic and
06:41they want to use vehicles to knock people over. The simple fact is that the risk is
06:48there. Someone has obviously realised that the area needs to be protected, should be
06:52protected, and enormous amounts of money have been spent putting in a system which would
06:58work, let's be quite frank, if you're going to put that system in, it should work. But
07:02it won't work if the barriers are down when they should be up. Yeah, that's right, God
07:06forbid an attack was ever to happen here in the country, or anywhere for that matter.
07:12But this investigation has found that bollards were left down for hours, council workers
07:16were letting vehicles through without doing proper checks. What's the first red flags
07:22from your experience of a system like this not really doing its job properly? Well, usually
07:29it's down to the operation and the operators, and it's not always their fault, let's be
07:35quite frank. Quite often operators are not given enough time or training. There should
07:41be a system, there should be strict rules for who can come in and who can go out, when
07:45they can go in and when they can go out. And of course the system should be in protect
07:51mode most of the time, unless that's been agreed otherwise. So it'll be interesting
07:58to see what the council's response is as to why the system's not being used properly.
08:03If it's down to a lack of resources, manpower, womanpower, whatever, then that needs to be
08:08addressed if you're going to make use of the system to protect people. Canterbury City
08:14Council told us that protocols are being tightened up, but it does kind of make you wonder if
08:19it's even worth it, if protocols are having to be tightened up in the first place. Does
08:24that mean that they weren't protected before, even after all this money was spent? Well,
08:30I see this time and time again. It comes down to resources, and human resources are the
08:35most expensive part. Actually putting the system in is one cost, but actually running
08:39it is another altogether. And quite often that is the resource that gets taken away
08:44when people are trying to save money. And whether the numbers of people that run the
08:49system are right, that needs to be looked at. But let's be quite honest, if a vehicle
08:57does decide to run through the town centre, the city centre, then all these costs are
09:04nothing compared to a human life. Now, from one barrier to another, women across
09:11the world still face challenges in today's society. This International Women's History
09:16Month, women, however, are coming together to inspire and educate other women and men
09:21about these issues. Earlier today, we spoke to Jay Nolan, who's been organising some of
09:26the events that are happening across Kent. People, you know, so many women wanted to
09:31be a part of it, and it was kind of, it pretty much organised itself. We put a steering group
09:36together, and the ideas just flowed of what we could do. And certainly, I mean, it was
09:43Dan Mason as well at Adult Education in Rochester. He and I have been talking about doing something
09:48like these panels we had. We wanted to do it two years ago, but we'd left it too late
09:54to actually do it last year. So we've been on this for a good year, kind of planning,
09:59you know, who we could have and what we could do. Yeah, and it's just been brilliant. And
10:05all the people that wanted to get involved and help out. Yeah, truly awe-inspiring. And to have
10:12so many wonderful, wonderful women to come along and talk about their experiences was,
10:17yeah, was really good. Yeah. Yeah. And you speak of the women who's turned up, and it's great to
10:23see so many role models. Tell us about how role models play a big part for young women growing up.
10:29Definitely. I mean, I would have to say my earliest role model was probably Beryl the Peril,
10:34and that's old Diane. But then following through there, Princess Leia was a huge influence. Julia,
10:42who did our opening speech, she touched on Sarah Connor and Ripley in the Alien movies. I would
10:55add Buffy to that. Buffy was also such a, you know, because although I was older, I had children
11:03by then. But yeah, real, really good, strong female role models. Whereas perhaps in literature
11:09and books before, particularly, you know, you've got a lot of adaptations of novels,
11:15kind of old novels, maybe like, you know, Pride and Prejudice. But again, even then,
11:19although they weren't action heroes, you know, the women in that were still pretty fierce role
11:24models. But yeah, you can't overestimate the importance of having strong women in your life
11:31to show you that you can do and be anything you want, and that your section hold you back in any
11:38way. And that was a theme that we found with the two panels on Saturday. So we can't wait to get
11:44videos out of those. They were very inspiring. That's all for now, but come back after a quick
11:50break for more news.
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