麻豆约拍

麻豆约拍 owners in Maidstone could be forced to sell their properties as part of a council crackdown to ease a housing shortage in the area.

In Kent, 19,000 homes currently lie empty, with more than 1,500 in Maidstone alone. However, 3,500 are on the council's housing waiting list.

Proposed measures include offering grants and loans to homeowners to repair their properties, advice on getting tenants in and issuing compulsory purchasing orders as a last resort.

Fran Wilson, Leader of the Liberal Democrats on Maidstone Borough Council, and David Ireland, Chief Executive of the Empty 麻豆约拍s Agency, tell John and Clare whether or not to council will succeed with their plans (07.09).

John Littlemore, Head of Housing at Maidstone Borough Council, explains why they are bringing in these measures and we hear from Steve Hoey from the Canopy Housing Project in Leeds, a successful scheme in Leeds often used by others as model of best practice (08.08).

Also on the programme, the latest NHS figures have shown a 7% rise in hospital admissions due to work related stress hospital admissions in the last year.

A 50 year-old man from East Kent says his workload kept growing and he believes the stress and anxiety led to him being hospitalised with a stroke (06.23).

Strood GP Julia Spinks explains to John and Clare how common these cases are becoming (07.22) whilst Tunbridge Wells employment lawyer and workplace health professor Cary Cooper offer advice on how to alleviate stress (08.23).

And new figures reveal that about 50% of children in Kent failed to pass the controversial new phonics reading test.

The test involves children reading aloud a mixture of 40 real or made up words, sounding them out using the phonics system.

Teaching unions say they risk doing long term damage to children's reading.

Karen White, Head of Delce Junior School in Rochester shares her concerns (07.40) while former Ofsted inspector John Bald supports the use of phonics in schools and tells John and Clare why (08.41).

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