麻豆约拍

Business leaders in Folkestone are appealing to the chancellor to drop a threatened increase in business rates because of a fear it could harm recovery in the town.

At the start of the week, we revealed the area had lost more businesses and traders than anywhere else in the country, except Hounslow and Liverpool.

Folkestone's town centre manager has written to George Osborne saying the proposed rise of 5.6% in business rates next month, could lead to to more "empty shops".

The headlines may all be about the Budget today, but for the 350 people laid off from Thamesteel on the Isle of Sheppey in January, the economic situation is already far too clear.

Today their future, and that of the entire UK steel making industry, is the subject of a debate at Westminster just a few hours before the chancellor of the exchequer gets to his feet.

It has been called by the Labour MP and former steel worker Tom Blenkinsop.

Motorists in Kent could become the first in the country to test-drive a proposed new national speed limit of 80mph. The government wants to speed up traffic by increasing the old 70mph limit which was imposed in the 1960s. The section of the M20 between J4 and J7 is expected to be earmarked for national trials.

麻豆约拍 TV series the Apprentice is back on our screens tonight and Kent is represented by a self-confessed flirt. Twenty-year-old Maria O'Connor, who owns Greek restaurant Elizvet in Sandwich, says she will use her female charms to ensure she wins the new series.