Catch up with all the latest news from across the county with Abby Hook.
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00:00Hello, good evening and welcome to Kent Tonight, live on KMTV.
00:29I'm Abbey Hook, here are your top stories on Wednesday the 23rd of April.
00:34The cost for councils, we take a look at how much money it takes to hold local elections.
00:40Environmental education, the government sets out new rules for schools to prepare young people for climate change.
00:47And finding their voices, Leeds Castle search for a community choir for this year's concert.
00:53But first this evening, we often report on elections being held across Kent.
00:58But have you ever considered how much they cost?
01:01After resignations last year, Medway Council held a by-election in February to fill three seats.
01:07It's a statutory part of running a council, but it came at a cost of more than £60,000 to council taxpayers.
01:15Local democracy reporter Gabriel Morris has been asking voters whether compulsory voting should be introduced.
01:23Three seats were contested this February.
01:26We know who won and we know turnout was low.
01:30In Rochester East and Warren Wood, just 24.4% of eligible voters cast a ballot.
01:37And at that last election, it turns out it cost the taxpayer around £14 per vote.
01:45That's the average cost of one person getting a takeaway.
01:49But how about if everybody voted who could?
01:52Well, then it would have cost the taxpayer only £3.
01:57That was less than this sandwich cost me.
01:59Even at last year's general election, turnout was only around 60%.
02:06You'd need compulsory voting to get everyone to the polls.
02:11But would it be popular?
02:13We've asked people in Rochester.
02:15I think it's a two-edged sword.
02:17I mean, the problem with that is I'm lucky I work from home so I can take my dog for a walk.
02:21But if you are a man who's working in NHS or whatever else, when do they get the time to do the voting?
02:26If it's compulsory and do they get penalised if they don't?
02:28I mean, I know some places it is compulsory.
02:31I can't imagine it coming in here at present.
02:34But I think people should get to know their councillors.
02:37No, to be honest, I wouldn't vote.
02:40Personally, because I'm not as aware of the information I need to be aware of.
02:44And I feel like I'm only 19 at the end of the day as well, so I don't feel like I know a lot.
02:48The thing is, do people know it's costing £14 a vote?
02:53I didn't know that until you told me.
02:55No, I didn't know it cost money either.
02:55Following new Medway MPs being elected last year, they stood down as councillors, triggering this year's by-election.
03:05Elections are a statutory process.
03:07Is there any way we can make them cheaper and more efficient so they don't cost £14 per voter?
03:12Certainly as regards the process, both of the count, but also the days and weeks running up to actually election day, the team here do a tremendous job.
03:22So, look, democracy does have a price.
03:25That's the reality of it.
03:26But I would say the efficiencies are strong in that team.
03:30Photo fatigue is often blamed for low turnout.
03:33So there'll be far fewer elections across Kent anyway.
03:37County council heads to the polls in a few weeks and it's set to be historic, expected to be the last before local government reorganisation reshapes Kent, reducing its 14 councils to just three or four.
03:55Gabriel Morris in Medway.
03:56Now, as the holiday season approaches, you may have been thinking of booking a summer trip.
04:04Well, apparently, today marks the start of a six-week rush to get that perfect holiday planned.
04:10You may think planning months, maybe years in advance, is the way to go, but it turns out that a last-minute deal may save you stress and some money.
04:19With 97% of us saying we're happier when we've got a trip booked, it seems like a no-brainer.
04:25But six weeks, that's not long, really.
04:28Let's get the advice from travel expert Seamus McCauley.
04:32Talk us through the science of six weeks as well, how that's sort of come across at that time.
04:38Because we know, for example, if you're going to a really exotic location, you need time for vaccinations to set in.
04:45But, you know, there'll be room to budget and Pax Mart and having to book time off with work.
04:52So give us an idea of the sort of the science and the mechanics of those six weeks.
04:57So there's a number of different studies that we drew on for this.
05:00Firstly, six weeks is just the minimum amount of time that you need to get all the paperwork done.
05:06As you rightly say, if you ask the NHS how long do you need for vaccinations, six weeks.
05:11If you ask the passport office, how long do you need to fix your passports?
05:14Again, six weeks.
05:15So if you start from six weeks out, you've given yourself enough time to get all of that done.
05:20But more importantly, there's a number of studies that show six weeks is the sweet spot for savings.
05:25If you book your flights and your hotel with six weeks notice, you've already started to take advantage of some of the early deals.
05:32You're not paying the starting price, but you're not leaving it to the very last minute where, you know, you can probably get a last minute deal.
05:39But you don't really have any guarantee of getting the best destinations.
05:44The other factors involved here.
05:48Firstly, when we looked at what's involved in booking a holiday, obviously people will book themselves a flight in a hotel and then think, great, my holiday is all sorted.
05:56But actually, six weeks is about the minimum amount of time that you need to sort out all the other things, all your extras at leisure.
06:04So, you know, let's think you're going to Turkey or Albania or Greece, a handful of very popular destinations.
06:10You've got your hotel and your flights.
06:12You've somehow got to get from your house to the airport at the UK end.
06:15You've got to get from the airport in destination to your resort.
06:20If you're going to, well, let's say Albania, you know, you've got to sort out the currency.
06:24You've got to get charges.
06:25You've got to pack everything that you want to do.
06:27You've got to work out what you're going to do when you get there.
06:29And when we ran all that through our AI tool, it worked out that 42 days was enough time to, you know, do each of those things at reasonable leisure over the course of those 42 days.
06:42And more importantly, when we ask people, okay, if you don't do it at leisure, if you leave it to the last minute, two things happen.
06:49Firstly, you do everything in a panic and you forget things.
06:51And secondly, studies show that if you're doing it at the last minute, you're leaving things behind.
06:56And something like 20% of holidaymakers said, yeah, if they pack and plan at the last minute, they leave things behind that they definitely needed on that holiday.
07:05And that cost was an average £140 in replacement costs and buying things in resorts.
07:09So there's all sorts of ways that giving yourself those six weeks to plan make it a more cost-effective, more stress-free and a much more pleasant experience to book.
07:19And for those who maybe normally book a year or six months in advance, what do you think is leading to these more spontaneous six-weekers?
07:29So, I mean, there's absolutely nothing wrong in booking with more notice.
07:32If you book well in advance, obviously, you've still got those six weeks at the end to book everything.
07:37But, you know, if you think about where are we going to go on holiday this summer?
07:41You know, I'm going to take my kids away at the start of the summer holidays.
07:44I'll probably start planning that in June.
07:46That'll give me ample time to make that happen.
07:48There's plenty of deals available, plenty of chances to go to exactly where we want to go.
07:53And, yeah, lots of people will book their summer holiday for this year in January.
07:58But, again, there's great deals to be had six weeks out.
08:01And it gives you ample time to plan it and ample time to make it all work.
08:06Have you found in your study that there's particular locations that come up more in advance than other, that, you know, there's more locations that come up six weeks out from maybe a year out?
08:16Well, the classic one people book way in advance is Disneyland.
08:21People tend to start planning trips to the American Disney parks a year, two years ahead.
08:27But, you know, if you're going for a beach holiday somewhere in Europe and you're reasonably relaxed about which of the various destinations you end up at, you know, you want some sunshine and some swimming, you should be absolutely fine to book six weeks out.
08:41But the top destinations for UK holidaymakers, they didn't change a lot for most of the last 20 years.
08:48It was Spain, France, Italy, USA fairly consistently.
08:51During 2020 and 21, the lockdowns, things shifted fairly materially.
08:56Spain is still the top destination.
08:58We've now got Greece in second place and Turkey in third because holiday habits changed quite a lot in that period when a lot of places weren't available.
09:06UK holidaymakers started going to Greece and Turkey, liked it so much that they kept going back.
09:10And those are still the sort of second and third most popular destinations.
09:14But there's lots of rising destinations as well.
09:17We found recently that particularly when places come up on TV, so you'll have seen Thailand in particular on White Lotus.
09:26That's gone up by a couple of hundred percent over the last couple of years as more and more people have been going there.
09:30So it's a combination of traditional destinations that people have always been going to for UK holidays and places that have been found in the limelight and new.
09:39Can you book too far in advance?
09:43You know, the phrase always early bird catches the worm.
09:45But can you book too far in advance that you maybe don't capitalize on some of those budget deals?
09:53There's some holidays where it's probably advisable to book a long way in advance.
09:57So the holiday planning process, let's say for the sake of argument, you're going overseas for a concert, you definitely want to secure the tickets first.
10:04If you're going away for a special occasion, for an event, for a meal, you want to make sure you've got that.
10:09So giving yourself lots of time to do it is probably sensible.
10:12But again, for most holidays, the data suggests that if you want to book your flights and your hotel, six weeks is the sweet spot for getting savings.
10:21And then on top of that, you know, you want to book all your holiday extras and make sure that you've got your parking, your airport, hotel, your lounges, your insurance all sorted out.
10:28Six weeks gives you ample time to make the savings that you'll make for doing that in advance, not paying the gate price and making the enormous savings you can do by making sure you've got that sorted out ahead of time as well.
10:39Some good advice from Seamus there now.
10:42A 74-year-old woman says she was left disgusted after being denied a courtesy car by a Kent garage simply because of her age.
10:50Sue Holm, a retired police officer and lifelong car lover, was told she couldn't be covered by the company's insurance policy despite initially being given the car, as they said she didn't look a day over 60.
11:02She says the decision was unfair and ageist, while the KAP Motor Group in Folkestone says it's down to insurance rules, not personal choice.
11:12A Folkestone schoolteacher will be the second woman in the world to attempt to swim from Monsell Forts to Whitstable.
11:18Jess Lauren will be jumping off the abandoned Second World War seafort in August and will have to swim eight miles back to the Kent coast to raise money for Aspire, a charity who supports spinal cord injury victims.
11:30But she's no stranger to the waves and was part of a Channel Swimming Relay team in 2023.
11:35But this will be her longest swim yet because of the more physically demanding tides and choppiness of the Thames estuary.
11:42Good luck to her.
11:43All right, time for us to take a very quick break now.
11:45More news from across the county in a few minutes' time.
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16:42the primary goal of this is ultimately to try and get schools starting to take action
16:49within sustainability um the climate action plan should cover four areas so decarbonization
16:55adaptation and resilience biodiversity and climate education and green careers and ultimately the aim
17:02of this is that we can help to start move schools along to like you say decarbonizing and meet net
17:10zero but alongside that actually inspire enable and empower young people to feel like they understand
17:17uh what is going on in the world but not just that actually that they can also understand how they can
17:22make small changes to make a difference as well and how will this be enforced how do we know that
17:27all schools will follow this so with regard to the enforcement um the department for education
17:35will not be or say asking action plans to be uploaded anywhere um and to be assessed in that
17:43way it is more of a soft rollout of the kind of strategy and the enforcement of climate action
17:50plans at the minute um that could change we don't know obviously i'm working for a program that
17:56support the strategy but we aren't sure where the department for education will take this but i would
18:01say one thing with climate action planning and with taking any sort of um action within sustainability
18:07there are multiple co-benefits to it as well for example where you touched on um decarbonizing
18:13and meeting net zero that comes with lower energy bills and therefore lower running costs there's a
18:19lot of money to be saved as well here but as well as that if we're looking at the students and
18:23inspiring and enabling empowering young people this also contributes to hopefully improving their
18:28well-being as well so there's multiple co-benefits to think about when taking climate action and so
18:33the climate action plans i would say although yes the department for education are asking education
18:38settings to do this and take this step also the way settings should look at it is that there are also
18:44co-benefits to taking these actions so jemma are there repercussions if a school doesn't um nominate
18:51a sustainability lead or doesn't have an action plan are there any repercussions there
18:56no schools do not need to worry um so this is not like i say something that is going to be added for
19:04example to an offset framework this is a soft rollout of um climate action plans and sustainability
19:11leads we are finding that when we're speaking to a variety of education settings some of them have
19:17heard about the strategy some of them haven't and obviously we're in 2025 already and within this
19:22strategy the dfe are asking for this to be implemented by the end of this year so a big thing
19:27is just making education settings aware of this one thing to say is that this does extend through
19:34down to nurseries and early year settings as well as up to colleges as well and what have you heard
19:40from schools in terms of how important they feel climate action is as well as their students
19:46well i think a lot of it within schools at the minute is coming from students and coming from
19:54teachers and senior leadership teams hearing more and more from their students that they want to see
19:59changes within the schools related to sustainability and environmental actions which is fantastic at the
20:05same time i would say we've got a lot of education settings that are coming forward to us and saying
20:10look we are noticing that this school over here has started to make some fantastic changes and it's
20:17been amazing for the students but also incredible for the school's kind of bills and things like that
20:22therefore we want to start making some changes as well so the schools i would say that have taken a lot
20:28of action so far are probably the kind of ones that were potentially already taking some action in this
20:34area we're now largely when i'm working speaking to kind of a middle group of
20:39education settings that maybe haven't done loads on this so far maybe have for example an eco club
20:45or a gardening club have a little bit of an outside growing space something like that but it's now
20:49starting to encourage them to move and look into this wider scheme of work not just focusing on one
20:55area ultimately so it's a real mixed bag all right now don't forget you can keep up to date with all
21:03your latest stories across kent by logging on to our website it's kmtv.co.uk there you'll find all our latest
21:08reports including this one recently the film and television awards season came to a close
21:14but there is one more event here in kent that may have slipped under the radar
21:19you may have heard of the oscars or the baftas but here in kent we have the ktv film festival
21:34it's held here at the galbenkin and it celebrates a wide variety of films made by students at the
21:40university of kent many student filmmakers directors and actors gathered to celebrate the achievements of
21:47their peers the whole event was organized and put together by the ktv committee i spoke with the
21:54station manager to get a better understanding of what the young filmmakers festival is all about
21:59um i think it offers a place to show their creativity and their art for even the new directors like this
22:07year it's a place for them to show their creativity and like what they can do but it's not always easy for
22:15independent filmmakers with 11 reboots coming out in 2025 and budgets for filmmaking on the rise i wanted
22:23to know why it's important to support those independent filmmakers it allows for diversity in the industry
22:30to be honest because when we always like expect the same big budget type of films to be made by the same
22:37type of people getting those budgets it kind of excludes like people like us or smaller artists who you
22:43don't see all the time who have maybe even better ideas for lower budget films there's so many like
22:48low-income directors that are going to have new ideas that these big directors couldn't even dream
22:54of after the red carpet and screenings of some of the films the awards were handed out walking with
23:00students took home best film and ben signieri took home best director and best screenplay so when i was
23:08uh about six years old i was obsessed with lego and my dad uh downloaded a stop motion app on his
23:13phone and so i just spent like two or three years making just hundreds of tiny little stop motion uh
23:18videos of lego and i just uh sort of decided i want to be a filmmaker and didn't uh and didn't change
23:23my mind so i mean it's quite overwhelming to win these awards uh i definitely wasn't expecting it
23:28especially the quality of their films are just absolutely amazing as well but um i mean i'm i'm just
23:33really happy that people like to film and that uh it's uh spoke to them after a promising look into
23:39the future of filmmaking the awards were all wrapped up etelie reynolds for km tv
23:47well congratulations to all the winners let's take a quick look at the weather now
23:55well tonight it's looking fairly chilly parts of the county temperatures as low as four
24:0010 in other parts as well that continuing tomorrow morning 10 degrees across the board
24:06some wind though picking up by the coast there some sunshine in north kent but that sun
24:11moving out to the rest of the county some clouds coming overhead in dartford and medway there but
24:16some sunshine in other parts and continuing much of the same until sunday highs of 19 though expect
24:22some sunshine behind the clouds now leeds castle is searching for a community choir from kent to take
24:37part in their annual concert they'll get a chance to sing in front of the stage as part of a mass choir
24:42and be part of a huge musical celebration but who can enter and who will be on the judging panel well
24:48earlier on the kent morning show cameron and isabel were joined by john rigby the concert has been going
24:54for over 40 years now i've been involved for the last 14 15 years and we thought it as it is a concert
25:01very much for the people of kent we thought it would be fabulous to try and find a way of including
25:06the people of kent a little more so we've launched a search for a community choir to find
25:12some a choir within the kent area that maybe wants to perform with us on the night it's the it's the
25:1912th of july saturday the 12th of july and we we play with the royal philharmonic orchestra and myself
25:25conducting and we have a number of international soloists and this year we also have the london
25:30international gospel choir joining us and we thought it would be great to involve more of the people in
25:36kent and the actual performance of it so we're looking for a community choir to come and take part
25:42and this all sounds very x-factor it sounds very uh you know an amazing opportunity for a local choir
25:48um tell us what you're going to be looking for in that i guess that kind of gareth malone-esque sort
25:54of figure oh i would hardly put myself in that bracket but what we're looking for really more than
26:01anything is people who have a love of music so can any choir enter absolutely any choir within kent can
26:10enter they just admit a video of them sitting in jerusalem or land of hope and glory along with a
26:19message telling us why they feel they should be the choir that takes part and if they send their
26:26entries in by the 23rd of may we will choose a choir to come and perform with us on the night
26:30exciting stuff well that's all we've got time for here on kent tonight live on kentv there's of course
26:37more news made just for kent throughout the evening i'll be back with your late bulletin
26:40and i'll see you tomorrow bright and early with gabriel morris for the kent morning show bye
26:53you