Swale

Two burglars have been sentenced at court after they stole vehicles parked outside owners’ homes in Swale and Medway.

Between Saturday 26th June and Sunday 11th July, Jim Smith (left photo) and Benjamin Lee targeted high value cars by stealing the ignition keys, having gained access to the victims' addresses.

On the 26th June, the pair stole an Audi A4 parked on a driveway in Coombe Drive, Sittingbourne. They replaced the number plates with a set stolen from a similar vehicle and then drove to Iwade where they attempted to commit another burglary.

The Mayor of Swale, Cllr Paul Stephen has offered his condolences to the family and friends of former Mayor Lesley Ingham, who passed away last week.

Lesley was the ward councillor for Sheppey East from 2007 to 2018 on Swale Borough Council, serving as chair of the licensing committee for several years and as the borough's Mayor for the 2016-17 civic year.

Here are the results from the local Kent County Council Elections here in Sittingbourne:-

SWALE EAST:
Turnout: 42.5%

RICH LEHMANN (Green): 3,067
CHARLOTTE WHITNEY-BROWN (Conservative): 2,443
FRANCES REHAL (Labour): 420

SWALE WEST:
Turnout: 31.9%

MIKE BALDOCK (Swale Independents): 3,018
MIKE WHITING (Conservative): 2,367

A popular former councillor from Sittingbourne has been made a Freeman of the Borough of Swale.

Peter Morgan, was given the honour at a special meeting of the council last night (Wednesday 3rd February), having been nominated by the council leader, Cllr Roger Truelove.

An emergency meeting to place this afternoon (Monday 23rd November) to help tackle the number of cases of coronavirus in Swale.

The meeting was called by Swale Borough Council in response to the recent rise in the number of cases in the borough with the latest government figures showing 645.6 cases per 100,000 people in the week up to Wednesday 18th November - just behind Hull, which was the country's worst-affected place last week.

The Borough of Swale officially has the second highest Covid-19 infection rate in the country.

Swale recorded 928 cases of coronavirus, while Thanet (Kent's previous highest authority area) recorded only 725 positive cases between Sunday 8th November and Saturday 14th November.

This latest fugure takes the borough's infection rate from 296.5 per 100,000 to 637.7 per 100,000.

New figures released by Public Health England (PHE) show that the Borough Of Swale has seen 90 new COVID-19 cases in a week - one in six of all positive tests recorded in Kent as a whole.

This recent outbreak has seen the infection rate jump to more than 200 in three areas on the Isle Of Sheppey, compared to a county average (Kent and Medway) of 49.4 per hundred thousand.

Five of the island's wards appear in the Top 6 of the county's hotspots:-                                                                            

The latest Office Of National Statistic (ONS) figures for Kent have been released and show that the county has suffered at least 4,254 coronavirus cases, with a further 706 cases recorded in the Medway unitary authority area.

Locally here in Swale the rate of coronavirus cases per 100,000 people is 198.0 compared to the worse rate in the county in Ashford which was recorded as 492.7.

New figures, released by The Office Of National Statistics (ONS) have revealed the number of people who have died from COVID-19 in Kent. 

The report reveals that 205 people had died of coronavirus in the county on or before Friday 10th April – 181 in hospital (88.3%), 16 in care homes (7.8%), 7 at home (3.4%) and 1 in a hospice.