00:00Kristen, tell us a bit about the weekend. I mentioned there that dispersed order. What
00:05have residents and businesses been saying?
00:09Well, Finn, I've been here all afternoon and I was speaking to every business that
00:14lined the sand on the beach today, as well as many residents that were at the beach huts.
00:19The business owners and the residents together were collectively shocked and disappointed
00:24at what they saw, but not surprised. It has to be remembered that this happened in years
00:28previous as well. Some say that this year was the worst of it, though. While they were
00:34concerned about the antisocial behaviour and the litter and glass left behind, they all
00:38told me they're worried that this is going to damage the town's reputation for being
00:41family friendly and want to urge people that outside of these incidents, that Broadstairs
00:46is still a great place to go. I did speak to one business owner who said that the effect
00:50that this is having on her business is really quite shocking.
00:54We have a window of time for us to open our business. We rely on the sun and everything
01:00coming together. You know, we worked really hard to get to this point and, yeah, for them
01:06to come here and behave the way they have, it's not just soul destroying, but for my business,
01:14it's, it's, it's, yeah, it's devastating.
01:22We do actually have footage as well of what happened on the Monday, the Easter, or the
01:28bank holiday Monday, sorry, just gone. In terms of the residents I spoke to as well, which,
01:36which reflect what was seen on Monday, they said that they had to go home early and were
01:41worried about their young children becoming unsafe because there was vapes on the ground,
01:44glass everywhere. There's also the aspect of those with disabilities in the area who
01:49maybe weren't able to leave as quickly as they wanted to or are becoming unwell and overwhelmed.
01:54Here's what the residents had to say.
01:57And at the end of the day, which was about seven o'clock, just left so much rubbish behind
02:04and that then had to be cleaned up either by the council employees or by other people
02:09who volunteer.
02:10Yeah, I saw it, it was outrageous, honestly. It was, it's just terrible that our lovely beaches
02:15are just getting ruined. It's such a lovely beach, it's a nice place.
02:18How did you feel?
02:23Worried. Worried.
02:24Were you scared?
02:26Yeah.
02:29And talk to us about some of the potential solutions that have been said.
02:35Well, the people I spoke to gave me an array of solutions. They think that it should be
02:39preventative though, instead of reactive. So some of those preventative things that they
02:44mentioned were the turnstiles and ticketing machines at the train station, which would,
02:48they think, prevent a lot of people from coming down. They say that not a lot of people buy tickets,
02:52and so having those machines there could prevent people from going through. They also say that
02:58security checks, like a festival, should happen as there was hundreds of people on the beach,
03:03and it did look quite like a festival, and that there should also be drinking bands on the beach
03:08like they have over in Australia. So a lot of solutions, more preventative though.
03:17Kent police also mentioned that they've been out meeting and talking to residents and were deployed,
03:23as you saw in that footage there.
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