Swale Borough Council

A dropped cigarette butt has cost an Surrey man £535, after he was prosecuted for littering in Sittingbourne.

Maidstone Magistrates Court found Anthony Nevin, of Reigate Road in Epsom, guilty and sentenced him to a fine of £50 and ordered him to pay a victim surcharge of £30 and legal costs of £455 within 90 days.

A Sittingbourne builder is £735 out of pocket after passing on trade waste to an unknown third party who fly-tipped the waste in Tonge.

Paul Dadswell, aged 52, of Langley Road in Sittingbourne, was prosecuted by Swale Borough Council for failing to comply with his duty of care for waste created through his work as a builder.

The council began investigating the case when a large quantity of building waste including plasterboard, construction materials and sanitary ware was found dumped at Lower Road, Tonge in November 2015.

Swale Borough Council's Cabinet will be asked to approve proposals to borrow up to £28 million to acquire the leisure and big box retail development in Sittingbourne and fund some of the specific works relating to the regeneration project, at a full meeting next Wednesday (9th November).

Work has begun on the new community centre for the Great Easthall estate in Murston.

Lakeview Village Hall is being built on the edge of the development, with funding coming from the estate developers, with the construction works are being overseen by Swale Borough Council. Once completed it will be open to anyone who needs to hire a hall or a room for their functions.

Companies across Swale are being asked their views of the impact of the EU Referendum on their business.

Swale Borough Council are carrying out a business survey to help build a picture of the state of the local economy and to identify trends and issues since the last survey that was conducted in 2014.

As well as asking businesses their view on the impact of the referendum, firms are also being asked about areas such as exporting, access to broadband, property needs and training and employment.

The government inspector who could eventually agree Swale Borough Council's Local Plan has published her interim findings.

The Local Plan is currently being examined by the Planning Inspectorate, who heard evidence from the council, developers and local groups about the council's proposed Local Plan, at the end of 2015.

Following a series of hearings, the inspector has now published her interim findings, which include:

Sittingbourne's newly cleaned War Memorial has finally been unveiled from it's scaffolding shroud.

Co-operative Funeralcare donated their local Monumental Mason, Steve Stechfield (pictured above,) to do the clean on behalf of Swale Borough Council at no cost.

Nuala O'Donoghue (also pictured above), the Community Liaison Organiser at the Co-operative Funeralcare, told SFM News that the "Co-operative Funeralcare increased the number of Masons working on the project to three which meant that the clean was completed in just four days".

Swale Borough Council is making £162,800 available for local groups to support projects that benefit the community over the next year.

The funding pot was announced at the council's Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 20th May when Cabinet Member for Localism, Cllr Mike Whiting, tabled a letter confirming the grants.

A badly injured Staffordshire Bull Terrier called Thomas has been found a new home in Sittingbourne, thanks to a record 90,000 views made to Swale Borough Council's Facebook page.

It follows the harrowing story of the 5-year-old dog, which was left badly stabbed and tied to a railing just off Thomas Road in Murston and featured in a news stroy on your local community radio station 106.9 SFM.

Swale Borough Council has joined hundreds of local authorities up and down the country by raising the Commonwealth flag on Commonwealth Day (Monday 10th March).

At 10.00am five hundred flags were raised in unison across the British Isles to allow communities to express their commitment to the Commonwealth, to show their appreciation of the values it stands for, and the opportunities that are available.