What can you do with the Freedom of Kent?
Plus another Kent school without reliable water, trouble inside Restore, facial recognition in Chatham and the fallout from Dover
The Brigade of Gurkhas is about to become only the second recipient of the Freedom of Kent. We asked what the county's highest civic honour actually gives you, and found an institution that is more interesting for whom Kent chooses to recognise than for any privileges attached to it. Plus the fallout from Dover's masked far-right mobilisation, another Kent school without reliable water, trouble inside Restore, facial recognition in Chatham and the week ahead in council chambers across the county.
Catch up
Kent knew what its new councils would look like for exactly 47 days. After 18 months of work, staff recruitment and millions in planned spending, ministers ordered authorities to stop while the decision is reviewed. Our report examined what had already been set in motion, why the four-council map is suddenly uncertain again and the considerable mess left behind.
Official Kent may be back under review, but the county is made from more than administrative boundaries. In an interview for our supporters, Steven spoke to immersive storyteller Adipat Virdi about the overlooked history of Sikh communities in Medway, using storytelling to explore identity and belonging, and why community sits at the root of Sikhism. Read their conversation here.
Our supporters also received our guide to the Kent that sits behind locked doors, which has proved particularly popular with readers. Heritage Open Days is offering free access to grand houses, underground defences, private rooms and some much less predictable historic places until 20 September. We searched the full programme for the openings genuinely worth knowing about, including sealed tunnels, cathedral archives and places most of us normally only see from outside.
What can you actually do with the Freedom of Kent?
At 10am on Thursday, Kent’s county councillors will gather at Sessions House for a meeting scheduled to last half an hour. After the Lord’s Prayer, apologies and declarations of interest, they will consider the only substantive item on the agenda: giving the Brigade of Gurkhas the Freedom of Kent.
The obvious question is what anyone can actually do with it.
The short answer is not very much. The formal title provides no special right to attend or address council meetings, no vote and no allowance. A recipient should instead be invited to occasions including the annual council meeting, the chairman’s civic reception and future ceremonies at which somebody else receives the same largely ceremonial freedom.
Its value lies in the recognition. The title is Kent County Council’s highest civic honour, providing a formal way to thank people or organisations it considers to have rendered 'eminent services' to the county. The law does not define what those services must involve, leaving councillors to make that judgement themselves.
So far, they have made it very sparingly.
Kent County Council resolved to use its power to appoint honorary freemen in 2011. It then spent the next 12 years appointing nobody. When the freedom was finally awarded in September 2023, the first recipient was not an individual but the ship’s company of HMS Kent.
If Thursday’s proposal receives the necessary support from two-thirds of the councillors voting, the Brigade of Gurkhas will become only the second name on the list.
The result is unlikely to be particularly contentious. The proposal recognises more than two centuries of Gurkha service with the British Army and a substantial modern connection with Kent.
One of the two battalions of the Royal Gurkha Rifles is based at Shorncliffe, near Folkestone. The Band of the Brigade of Gurkhas is also based in the town, while the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers serve with the 36 Engineer Regiment in Maidstone.
Gurkhas began serving with the forces of the East India Company following the Anglo-Nepalese War of 1814 to 1816. More than 238,000 served during the two world wars, according to the British Army’s history of the brigade. Gurkha units have since taken part in conflicts and operations including the Falklands, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The brigade’s particular relationship with Kent developed as its centre of gravity moved from Hong Kong to Britain during the 1990s. The Royal Gurkha Rifles arrived at Shorncliffe around the turn of the century, and serving soldiers, veterans and their families have since become an established part of the community around Folkestone.
That relationship now exists beyond the barracks. Earlier this year, Kent County Council agreed new terms allowing the Folkestone Nepalese Community to remain at Cheriton Library for another five years. The organisation uses the ground floor to provide support and activities for veterans, families and the wider Nepalese community.
The Freedom of Kent would recognise that broader connection as well as the brigade’s military record.
Its only existing recipient arrived with a similarly direct claim. The Royal Navy has operated a succession of ships bearing the county’s name, with the current HMS Kent a Type 23 frigate launched in 1998.
After councillors awarded its ship’s company the freedom in 2023, the crew returned the following day to march through Maidstone with the massed bands of the Royal Marines and Kent Sea Cadets. More than 6,000 people lined the route, according to the council.
The parade coincided with the anniversary of the 1989 Deal barracks bombing, in which 11 Royal Marines musicians were killed. It gave the new civic honour a visible purpose that its fairly restrained written privileges do not quite convey.
Thursday’s proposed award continues that pattern. Kent’s freedom has so far been used to recognise military bodies with a longstanding relationship to the county rather than individual politicians, campaigners, artists or other public figures.
That may partly explain why the list remains so short. Both recipients represent connections extending beyond a single person or period of service. HMS Kent carries the county’s name around the world. The Gurkhas’ presence has shaped parts of Folkestone and Maidstone, with families and veterans making lives here alongside those still serving.
The Freedom of Kent does not allow its recipients to exercise any power over the county. It does something less practical but more lasting, recording whom Kent has chosen to include in its official civic story.
If councillors approve the proposal on Thursday, that story will contain a ship’s company and an army brigade. The formal privileges may be limited, but the company is certainly select.
Three big reads
1️⃣ Kent’s connections with the wider world apparently extend all the way to the ancient Egyptian afterlife. A fragment of the Book of the Dead has been discovered in the county, having travelled considerably further than its original owner can have anticipated. The Telegraph tells the story.
2️⃣ A more deliberate international arrival is transforming the countryside outside Chilham. French champagne house Taittinger owns 51% of Domaine Evremond, home to Britain’s first subterranean winery and part of a Kent industry that now includes 120 commercial vineyards. The Guardian explores how English wine went from national punchline to something served at state banquets, with glasses available at £12.50 for anyone wishing to inspect the evidence personally.
3️⃣ After our reporting last week on the masked far-right group that blocked Dover, The Guardian steps back to ask what the episode says about Britain’s handling of extremism. Its analysis examines how groups use intimidation while operating just below the criminal threshold, and why the authorities continue to describe something that looked nothing like an ordinary demonstration as 'protest activity.' Meanwhile, accusations have been made that Kent Police ignored 999 calls about the event reported the night before.
In brief
🚰 This week's loser of the water supply lottery is Slade Primary School in Tonbridge, which has had to close days into the new academic year because it was without a 'safe and reliable service.'
👨💻 It's been a great week for Restore councillors in Kent, after one was viciously attacked by her own side for daring to visit a Gurdwara in Gravesham.
🗣️ Meanwhile, another Restore councillor had to apologise after claiming buses for fruit pickers were 'full of migrants.'
🚛 Refuse collectors in Thanet have paused a ballot over strike action after the council made some improvements to the service.
🚓 Kent Police deployed facial recognition cameras in Chatham last week, making two arrests and seizing weapons.
🗄️ Public hearings on Medway's new Local Plan begin this week.
🚧 Repairs to Sandwich Toll Bridge still haven't begun, a month after a lorry crashed into it, forcing it to close.
⚡ Medway is set to get nearly 2,500 on-street electric vehicle chargers over the next 15 years.
🎭 Ashford Borough Council have revealed plans for a new cultural space inside the town's former Odeon.
🦈 It turns out there are more sharks around Kent than you might expect.
🎛️ Catching up with Ramsgate's Sam Battle, better known as Look Mum No Computer, who represented the UK at this year's Eurovision Song Contest.
🚠 Carriages for the Leas Lift have returned to Folkestone following an extensive restoration project.
Council matters
Meetings this week:
- Canterbury: Planning Committee meets on Tuesday to decide on 21 new homes in Hoath and 9 new homes in Bridge.
- Ashford: Planning Committee will decide on 15 new homes in Tenterden on Wednesday.
- Canterbury: Council meets on Wednesday to discuss protecting city status under reorganisation, which has now been paused.
- Maidstone: Cabinet will re-examine the decision to close Maidstone Market on Wednesday.
- Tonbridge & Malling: Planning Committee meets on Wednesday to decide on 300 new homes in Eccles, 45 homes in East Malling, and more.
- Tunbridge Wells: Planning Committee will decide on 125 new homes at Spratsbrook Farm, and 104 new homes in Mount Ephraim.
- Kent: County Council meets on Thursday to debate changes to the planning system, treasury management, 20mph zones, and bus passes.
- Dover: Planning Committee will decide the fate of a solar farm in Tilmanstone on Thursday.
- Maidstone: Planning Committee will debate 100 new homes in Lenham, 45 new homes in Harrietsham, and more on Thursday.
- Thanet: Cabinet will discuss asset disposal, biodiversity, and most importantly, car park signage, on Thursday.
New planning applications:
- Folkestone & Hythe: Construction of block of 14 flats on Tram Road.
Property of the week
This is Luton House in Selling, where £3m gets you nine bedrooms, more than 20 acres and the sort of grounds where an old swimming pool has been turned into a lily pond. The Grade II listed house has been in the same family for around 60 years and includes five reception rooms, six bathrooms, an Aga kitchen, and a separate building called The Bothy, because obviously it does. Outside there is also a landscaped lake, wildfowl aviary, kitchen gardens, wooded walks, garages and workshops, while inside it has the slightly eccentric feel of a proper old country house rather than somewhere recently dressed for Instagram. A new owner may want to update plenty, but when your garden includes a lake and a former swimming pool, choosing new bathroom tiles may not be the most pressing concern.
Events this week
🎤 Wed 16 Sep - Phil Wang: Uh Oh // Comedian tours new stand-up show, now with added moustache. Assembly Hall, Tunbridge Wells. Tickets from £29.25.
🎤 Wed 16 Sep - John Kearns: Tilting at Windmills // Comedian portrays his life, books he hasn't read, and VAT. Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury. Tickets £26.50. Also at Faversham Assembly Rooms on 9 Oct.
🎤 17 - 20 Sep - Maidstone Improv Festival // Four nights of unscripted comedy. Various locations, Maidstone. Tickets from £10.
🐺 Sat 19 Sep - Stewart Lee vs The Man-Wulf // Comedian returns to Chatham and tries to unleash his new edgy alter-ego. Central Theatre, Chatham. Tickets £31.
🎨 19 Sep - 15 Nov - In Turner’s Wake // Largest display of original JMW Turner works yet staged at the Dockyard, shown alongside contemporary paintings by Jake Wood-Evans. Historic Dockyard, Chatham. Tickets £29, including Dockyard entry.
🎞️ Sun 20 Sep - Vox Lumiere: Metropolis // Fritz Lang’s silent science-fiction masterpiece screened with a live band, original music and singers. Woodville, Gravesend. Tickets £30.
Footnotes
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