Catch up on the latest political news from across Kent with Sofia Akin, joined by Conservative Councillor Habib Tejan from Medway Council and Green Councillor Stuart Jeffery from Maidstone Borough Council.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hello and welcome to the Kent Politics Show
00:24 live on KMTV.
00:26 I'm Sophia Akin.
00:27 Now excessive noise, speeding and car cruising.
00:31 Sound familiar?
00:31 Well maybe not for much longer as Medway Council
00:34 are cracking down on so-called boy races.
00:37 Also tonight with UK prisons just hundreds away
00:40 from being at capacity,
00:42 Kent Police and Crime Commissioner says
00:43 we need more prisons.
00:45 And also another two huge wins for Labour
00:47 in this week's by-election,
00:49 but do Kent Tories still back RPM?
00:52 Now a move to give police more powers
00:54 in tackling anti-social drivers in Medway
00:56 has been given the green light.
00:58 The Medway-wide Public Spaces Protection Order
01:00 known as PSPO won approval from all the council last night.
01:05 It comes as residents have also mentioned
01:07 nuisance behaviours such as racing, stunts,
01:10 revving engines and even car cruising.
01:12 We spoke to Tristan Osborne,
01:14 portfolio holder for community and safety
01:17 and enforcement at Medway Council.
01:19 - Council officers will attend with police officers
01:23 at specific times.
01:25 Police officers have the powers to issue section 59s
01:27 with confiscations and council officers
01:30 can issue community protection notices.
01:32 So those two things together will prevent individuals
01:36 both confiscating the vehicle,
01:37 but also sanctioning them
01:39 for attending a particular location.
01:41 So we're hoping over a period of time,
01:43 we can retrospectively look at images as well,
01:46 CCTV cameras and other technologies
01:49 that we can catch some of these perpetrators
01:51 and ultimately make our communities more safe
01:53 and our roads safer and our high streets safer too.
01:56 - Joining me tonight is Conservative Councillor
01:59 Habib Tijan from Medway Council
02:02 and Green Councillor Stuart Jeffrey
02:04 from Maidstone Borough Council.
02:06 Welcome to both of you.
02:07 Thanks for joining us.
02:08 So firstly, this new proposal
02:12 seems to have cross-party approval on this one.
02:15 It looks to be brought in across all of Medway
02:17 when there are actually only certain areas
02:19 that have been particularly identified
02:21 for having so-called nuisance drivers,
02:23 including the Medway City Estate, Who and Lordswood.
02:25 So Habib, is it fair that it's being brought in
02:28 across all of Medway?
02:29 - I think absolutely.
02:30 I mean, it's a very welcome proposal.
02:33 This proposal was started, as you probably know,
02:35 quite a while ago when the work began on this.
02:38 And I'm quite pleased.
02:40 It's wholeheartedly supported
02:41 by everyone in council last night.
02:43 I'm sure most residents will be quite happy,
02:46 especially those living close to car parks
02:51 where incident took place, Medway City Estate
02:54 and the Rochester Riverside car park
02:57 and other parts of Medway.
02:59 These nuisance drivers, and only a little bad apples,
03:02 very few bad apples, I would say.
03:05 Not everyone do that, but they put people's life at risk.
03:10 You know, they cause public disorder.
03:14 And I think, you know, that it seems like a racing club.
03:20 You know, they market themselves
03:22 and congregate as a group in certain location.
03:26 And for them, it's like a street party,
03:28 wheeling and spinning the wheels
03:31 and causing lots of nuisance for--
03:34 - Yeah, it's something your leader was saying,
03:36 Adrian Gov, at council meeting last night,
03:38 was saying that it's something that they raised a while ago.
03:40 But then why wasn't there more sort of action
03:43 from the Conservatives to actually put it in place
03:45 if it was mentioned previously?
03:46 - Yes, absolutely.
03:47 The action started.
03:49 I mean, some of these things take a while
03:51 to come to fruition.
03:52 I mean, it doesn't happen in 127 days.
03:55 It has to go through the process and all the procedure.
03:58 So, I mean, I could look back at same correspondence
04:01 from back in 2020, asking officers
04:06 to look into finding solution to this problem.
04:10 So, yeah, certain things takes time.
04:14 - And Stuart, something that was raised
04:15 by Kent's Police and Crime Commissioner
04:17 is that this, introducing a PSPO in Medway,
04:20 is it not just going to push the problem
04:23 out further outside into Kent?
04:25 These drivers, could they be going Bluebell Hill
04:27 on your way to Maidstone?
04:29 - They could easily be.
04:30 I mean, I think there is a,
04:33 I mean, the PSPO that's been introduced
04:35 feels like it's probably okay to do.
04:37 It's reasonably focused in its targeting.
04:41 I think there is a danger, though, as you say,
04:43 that it can push people out,
04:44 certainly where we've had initiatives within Maidstone.
04:49 You clamp down on an area and it moves the problem.
04:52 And that doesn't address the underlying problem
04:55 of young people having the wrong sense of purpose.
05:00 I'm not going to say no sense of purpose,
05:02 'cause they've clearly got a sense of purpose,
05:04 but a destructive sense of purpose.
05:07 And maybe we ought to be thinking a little bit harder
05:10 as a society about how we build communities
05:14 that aren't based around driving cars as fast as you can,
05:18 around people's streets and causing this sort of annoyance.
05:21 - Is it something that Maidstone would consider
05:24 introducing a PSPO in Maidstone?
05:26 - I mean, we've clearly got a smaller problem, I think,
05:31 than what I'm hearing in Medway.
05:33 We've got other problems that are significant,
05:39 and we certainly have PSPOs.
05:41 So we're not averse to them.
05:43 I haven't seen anyone personally call
05:47 for a PSPO on this particularly,
05:49 but if that problem ends up in Maidstone,
05:53 clearly we're going to have to think about reacting to it.
05:58 - And this is said to have an involvement
06:00 of council officers and police officers,
06:03 but who's actually going to enforce these powers?
06:07 Can police not just do this
06:08 without sort of diverting resources from elsewhere?
06:11 Why does it have to be done in this way, Habib?
06:13 - I think it needs an approach,
06:18 a unilateral approach,
06:19 you need collaboration to solve some of these problems.
06:23 It's not a one solution fix or one tool.
06:27 Hence, we need to collaborate with local councils as well.
06:30 For example, Maidstone might find it interesting,
06:34 they might see the possibility of collaborating with us
06:37 to understand our problem
06:39 and see how they can prevent this spilling over.
06:41 But as Stuart said, it's a social nuance
06:45 and we need to look at the cause of this
06:47 and try to address it before prevention
06:51 is better than cure, as you said.
06:53 - We've also seen this week in Medway,
06:56 a bid to stop quite a controversial scheme
06:59 that would have cost just a little more than £800,000
07:03 of introducing five red routes across the Medway towns.
07:07 This is a little bit like double yellow lines,
07:10 but it would mean that trying to put a stop
07:13 to illegal parking, reduce traffic congestion,
07:17 it would mean that people cannot stop by any means
07:19 even to sort of load, offload and things like that.
07:23 But nine conservatives went against it,
07:26 meaning it had to be re-debated,
07:27 but this week, eight voted four and seven against.
07:30 So it will now be going to consultation.
07:33 What do you think of that, Habib?
07:34 - Well, I think it was an undemocratic decision
07:38 because 64% of the respondents
07:43 decided they don't want it, they don't need it.
07:48 But obviously the council, the administration
07:50 is progressing with this.
07:52 The red route, it might be needed in certain parts,
07:55 but for example, in Renham, where the nine members
07:59 you spoke about spoke in a resounding manner
08:05 that their residents don't want this.
08:07 I think they need it to be listened to.
08:09 Those who represent that area knows that area best
08:12 and understand what the needs are for that area.
08:16 So I will urge the council, the administration
08:20 to rethink and look at it rather than just
08:22 impose these red routes.
08:24 - It was mostly Renham residents that were against it.
08:26 There were some areas where we saw people
08:29 more in favour of it.
08:30 So could there have been a slight different way of doing it,
08:32 maybe scaling back rather than scrapping it altogether,
08:35 would you say?
08:36 - Absolutely.
08:37 I mean, I totally agree.
08:37 I mean, we should be quite sensible on how we allocate
08:42 resources to spend all that money in places
08:47 that don't need to be, especially when the council finances
08:52 in a very difficult state.
08:53 Well, the country finance, or I should say
08:56 the world finance is in a difficult state.
08:58 So it's a global problem.
09:00 - But it's meant to bring in a lot of money.
09:02 So it might be causing a lot of money,
09:04 but it's also meant to generate a lot of revenue
09:06 from fining these motorists who are parking illegally.
09:09 - Well, I mean, you can't be certain
09:12 what revenue is gonna generate.
09:14 How can you budget for that?
09:17 How can you plan on what you're gonna receive
09:20 from parking fines?
09:21 So certainly, you know, unless I see, you know,
09:26 clear modelling on how with figures and so on
09:30 how this is gonna work, I will totally, you know,
09:33 don't support that point.
09:35 - Well, I wanna bring in Stuart.
09:36 It's something, a little bit that's been compared
09:38 to you, Les, and it's almost like Kent's becoming
09:41 a mini London, trying to reduce traffic congestion
09:45 and bring down the sort of number of cars
09:49 that are in the area.
09:50 Is it something you're in favour of, Stuart?
09:53 Are you sort of in favour of these red routes?
09:55 What do you think about it?
09:56 - I mean, it doesn't sound much like you, Les, at all.
09:58 And yes, I'm completely aware of red routes, generally.
10:01 I mean, to me, it just feels like a way
10:04 of getting traffic moving faster.
10:07 And frankly, that feels quite a backward way
10:12 of thinking about how we ought to be getting around.
10:16 I mean, frankly, we need fewer cars on the road.
10:20 There is, the roads are not designed for that.
10:23 The level of pollution that it causes and so forth,
10:27 everything says we need to reduce the number of cars.
10:31 Simply stopping people stopping is not going to do that.
10:35 In anything, it's going to increase that.
10:37 So I think it is unimaginative and frankly,
10:41 800,000 pounds, not a huge amount of money
10:44 in transport terms, but realistically,
10:46 I think councils should be thinking far more imaginatively
10:51 about improving public transport, improving cycling,
10:55 walking, anything to encourage people
10:58 and give people good options to not use their cars
11:02 has to be the way forward.
11:03 - We've all been in that position, though,
11:05 where we've seen someone parked illegally
11:07 and it's quite annoying,
11:08 especially if you can't get through a certain gap.
11:10 It makes it dangerous.
11:11 So is this not heading in the right direction at all?
11:14 - I mean, I do get the annoyance of people parking illegally.
11:19 Frankly, we ought to be tackling those people
11:22 who are parking on pavements and blocking those first
11:24 because that's far more dangerous
11:26 than somebody leaving their car on the road.
11:29 I often see cars completely blocking pavements,
11:33 people having to walk out into the roads to get around them.
11:37 Yet we do nothing about that
11:39 and want to make it easier for drivers.
11:41 Well, let's have a radical rethink.
11:44 Let's not just try and solve
11:46 little bits of problems here and there.
11:48 - We'll pick this up after the break.
11:49 We've got to go to a break now.
11:50 Thank you very much.
11:51 See you in a few minutes with more topics.
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15:04 - Hi there and welcome back to the Kent Politics Show
15:10 live on KMTV.
15:13 We need more prison.
15:14 Those are the words of Kent Police and Crime Commissioners
15:17 in response to a UK-wide problem
15:19 with overcrowding of prisons.
15:20 The current offender population is just short
15:23 of its almost 90,000 capacity
15:25 and it's set to only increase with tougher sentences
15:27 and court backlogs.
15:29 Rochester and Maidstone prisons
15:30 are two of a number across the Southeast
15:33 identified to have staffing pressures.
15:35 I asked Matthew Scott about this earlier.
15:37 - We need to listen to the views of prison officers.
15:41 If it's about pay, listen to their views.
15:43 If it's about their personal security and safety,
15:46 listen to them, give them the equipment
15:47 and the training that they need in order to feel effective.
15:50 We need to address the causes of the offending in prisons.
15:53 Again, it goes back to this problem of substance misuse
15:56 and drugs, which are a real problem still.
15:59 If we can crack those issues, support the prison officers,
16:02 give them what they need to feel safe and do their jobs,
16:05 recompense them properly,
16:06 but also to make sure that we are dealing with the problems
16:09 which are in the prisons,
16:10 I hope we'd be able to attract more people
16:12 into doing the role.
16:14 - Still here with me tonight
16:15 is Conservative Councillor Habib Tijan
16:17 from Medway Council
16:19 and Green Councillor Stuart Geoffrey from Maidstone.
16:21 Thanks for joining us for a second half.
16:24 So, these staffing problems
16:28 at a number of South East prisons,
16:30 including both in your areas, Rochester and Maidstone.
16:34 Is this something that's a concern, Stuart,
16:36 if people aren't wanting to work at these prisons,
16:38 but we're having this problem of overcrowding,
16:39 what can we do?
16:41 - So, I mean, staffing problems seem to be fairly endemic
16:44 across every aspect of employment at the moment.
16:49 And the idea that you call for more prisons
16:52 when you've got a staffing problem
16:54 that you can't staff the ones you've got is a bit strange.
16:57 I do think though that we do have a very strange attitude
17:01 to crime and punishment in this country.
17:05 And there is a real need for a rethink
17:09 about how we treat people
17:12 and what we do with people who have committed crimes.
17:15 The idea of restorative justice, for example,
17:19 doesn't seem to appear very much at all
17:21 within our criminal justice system.
17:24 And yet it would be a real benefit.
17:27 The idea that we help people rehabilitate within prisons
17:31 has been there for many, many decades,
17:33 but how well does that happen?
17:36 But ultimately, we have got some very strange thresholds
17:40 for putting people in prison.
17:42 Friends of mine have gone to court
17:47 and I know of people that have been put into prison
17:51 and are currently in prison for political reasons,
17:54 through peaceful protest.
17:56 Now, why on earth they are taking up prison spaces
17:59 is beyond me.
18:00 We are one of the worst countries in the world
18:03 for political prisoners,
18:04 but we don't seem to recognise that as a culture.
18:08 - How do you decide the right crimes
18:10 to put people away for then?
18:12 How do we find the line of, say,
18:14 giving someone community service
18:15 and then putting them in prison?
18:17 How do you draw that line?
18:18 - I mean, I think it's clearly a risk-based,
18:20 it needs to be very much a risk-based thing.
18:23 How much of a danger is that person to society?
18:27 And perhaps we need to shift our thinking away from prison
18:31 simply being a punishment to being a place
18:35 to keep society safe for the rest of people.
18:40 Punishment is the wrong focus for prisons.
18:44 I mean, it should be about rehabilitation.
18:45 Someone's done something wrong,
18:47 help them to put it right
18:49 and to rehabilitate people back into society.
18:52 - That's what Matthew Scott was saying
18:53 is their main focus is rehabilitation.
18:56 And Habib, Matthew Scott had this approach
18:59 of build, build, build more prisons.
19:01 How can we afford that though
19:02 when the country is struggling so much financially?
19:05 How can we just afford to build more prisons?
19:07 - I mean, how can we afford to build more prisons?
19:10 Prison should be an institution, obviously,
19:13 to stop people from offending
19:16 and causing crime in the first place.
19:18 And we have had population growth.
19:21 So obviously we need to have prisons
19:23 in proportion to the population growth.
19:26 And yes, we are going through difficult financial situation
19:29 but you gotta look at the risk
19:32 of having overcrowded prison,
19:34 the impact on individual, their health,
19:36 their mental health, their physical wellbeing
19:39 and the tension it causes
19:41 for those who work in that environment.
19:44 And maybe that's why the attrition rate,
19:46 maybe that's why the attrition rate is a little bit higher
19:48 because that environment is not.
19:50 So I do agree, I mean, I see where Matthew coming from.
19:54 We need to build more prison
19:56 and we need to find means of funding them
19:59 and find means of operating these prisons.
20:02 So yeah, so certainly we need to look at
20:05 how do we generate, like you asked the question,
20:07 money from, if there's no money in the coffers,
20:10 think about ways of generating money
20:12 to build this institution.
20:16 So where there's a will, there's a way.
20:19 - Where do we find this money though?
20:20 All these different areas are saying,
20:22 we need money for this.
20:23 You're seeing workers striking, demanding more money.
20:26 How can we just find more money to fund prisons?
20:29 - Everyone needs more funding.
20:32 Prison, hospital would need more money, the schools.
20:37 And as you rightly said, we are in a very difficult.
20:40 - Perhaps if the conservatives decided to tax
20:42 some rich people, that might help perhaps.
20:45 You know, maybe the prime minister could show some example
20:50 by paying a little bit more tax than the 21%
20:53 he paid the other year on his millions that he earned.
20:57 You know, there's a real fundamental problem
21:00 in the way we've taxed and built our society
21:04 that benefits the rich
21:06 and makes everybody else really struggle.
21:09 - I mean, Stuart, I mean, we've got a tax governance
21:14 and this tax structure had been in place for a while.
21:17 And I know that the current and last conservative government
21:21 have put more money in people's pocket, in the poor.
21:24 So they raised their threshold so that those
21:27 on the lower scale of income keep more of their money.
21:32 And that's a fact.
21:33 And I know taxation is something that keep coming up
21:38 and people are keep reviewing them.
21:40 And yes, you're quite right.
21:42 By taxing more, we could have more money.
21:46 But it's not all about taxing.
21:48 There's different method in growing an economy.
21:50 You can't just tax your way out of trouble.
21:53 Sometimes you need to think of how do we,
21:55 what do we produce?
21:56 How do we, what do we invest in?
21:59 What's the new technology?
22:00 And how do we make our country stand out
22:04 so we are a producing nation?
22:07 We are selling our skills.
22:09 - I'm not sure if you spoke to anyone
22:10 on lower income recently,
22:11 but I'm pretty certain they would disagree
22:14 with your statements.
22:15 But taxation should be a method of improving equity
22:20 and equality within society
22:23 rather than simply raising money.
22:25 But at the moment, we don't seem to be doing either.
22:27 - The root of the problem here,
22:28 many people are saying is rehabilitation,
22:31 stopping people from re-offending
22:33 and offending in the first place.
22:34 So is that not what we need to focus on
22:37 is actually reforming these criminals in the first place.
22:41 That potentially would then mean
22:43 that we're not almost reaching the maximum capacity.
22:47 - I totally agree with you.
22:48 I mean, we need to,
22:50 if I may comment,
22:50 we need to look at, you know,
22:53 for the root cause from, you know,
22:55 the social problem, you know,
22:56 the deprivation of poverty,
23:00 all these little ingredients
23:02 that lead to crime in the first place
23:05 and try and see how we can target.
23:07 At the moment, I mean,
23:10 we are in the digital age
23:12 and we can use certain technologies
23:15 to help us treat somebody's problem
23:19 or identify them in a very early age
23:22 and target resources towards them.
23:24 So it's true.
23:25 You're welcome.
23:26 - I was just worried about some--
23:28 - We could go on forever, couldn't we?
23:30 - Is it Minority Report
23:31 where they arrest people before they've committed a crime?
23:34 I've got the wrong film.
23:35 - No, no, no.
23:36 - Just a bit scary.
23:37 - No, no, no, no, arrest them before.
23:38 - We could go on about this forever, couldn't we?
23:41 - But targeting and allocating resources,
23:43 I thought in a preventative measure
23:46 and treating the problem well before it happens.
23:49 - I think we'll leave that one there for now.
23:51 So just lastly tonight,
23:53 just want to see,
23:54 do Kent Conservatives still support Rishi Sunak?
23:57 The Prime Minister faced another two defeats
24:00 as Labour won Thursday's two by-elections
24:02 in Bedfordshire and Tamworth.
24:04 While the Tories have blamed it on low turnout,
24:06 Labour leader Sikir Starmer
24:08 called it history in the making.
24:10 Now, you might be thinking,
24:11 what's that got to do with Kent?
24:13 But this is all having an impact
24:15 on how Kent voters are going to look
24:19 to the next general election.
24:21 So Habib, I'd like to ask you,
24:23 I'm asking, do Kent Tories still have faith
24:25 in the Prime Minister?
24:26 Do you?
24:28 - I do.
24:28 I mean, I was at party conference
24:30 and he's our Prime Minister
24:32 who took us into the general election.
24:34 I mean, yeah, this is by-election,
24:37 with a turnout I think of 35%,
24:41 if I can remember the figures right.
24:42 So it's a low turnout.
24:44 And historically people tend to protest on by-election.
24:48 - Do you think he can win the next election?
24:51 - Of course, absolutely.
24:52 I mean, absolutely, I think so.
24:56 I think he can win the next election.
24:57 I think the people will see,
25:01 inflation is coming down.
25:02 - The polling's going against it though, so.
25:07 - Absolutely, the polling's there,
25:09 but we still got a long time.
25:10 As you say, a week in politics is a very long time.
25:13 It's a good time.
25:15 - Just quickly, I want to ask you,
25:16 we've seen the Green Party conference
25:18 where four seats were set as a priority
25:20 for the next general election,
25:22 but none in Kent.
25:23 Were you disappointed, Stuart?
25:24 We've got a Green-led council in Folkestone and Hythe.
25:27 Were you disappointed none of those seats were put in Kent?
25:30 - I would love to have a Green MP in Kent,
25:34 or 18 of them, I think,
25:37 for the next election.
25:37 Wouldn't that be fantastic?
25:38 But realistically, we've got one in Brighton.
25:43 We're expanding in various parts of the country.
25:46 We're winning elections very, very regularly.
25:49 The news didn't cover the two council-by-elections
25:53 that we won last night.
25:54 I think they were in Worcestershire.
25:56 So, we are winning stuff,
25:58 and I think we're very much on the up.
26:01 So there will come a time at some point soon, hopefully,
26:04 where we do start to get Green MPs in Kent.
26:07 - Well, we'll have to see.
26:08 General election coming up next year, I'm sure.
26:11 We'll have to see how the political map changes across Kent.
26:13 Thank you both for joining us tonight.
26:16 Now, just before we go,
26:17 on Monday, we'll be airing a brand new episode
26:19 of our Kent Politics Show special series,
26:21 where we sit down and interview Kent politicians
26:23 about issues that matter to you.
26:24 We've spoken to Damien Green
26:26 about the Eurostar services returning to Ashford,
26:28 the future of local journalism,
26:30 and the looming general election,
26:32 where we saw the MP go for the new Weald of Kent seat.
26:34 That airs this Monday at 7pm.
26:37 That's all for the Kent Politics Show,
26:38 but I'll be back straight after the break.
26:40 We've got Kent Tonight
26:41 with all the latest news from across Kent.
26:44 And Kent Politics Show will be back
26:46 at the same time next week, five o'clock.
26:47 See you soon.
26:48 Goodnight.
26:50 (upbeat music)
26:52 (upbeat music)
26:55 (upbeat music)
26:59 (upbeat music)
27:01 (upbeat music)
27:04 [BLANK_AUDIO]