Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
What a day!
I am ridiculously proud to tell people thatiamthemanagerofcanterbury House. The building is beautiful, spacious, bright and extremely well equipped. We opened our doors on the 12th of July and already have a steady stream of residents moving in. I am delighted that they have chosen us, and I will work hard to ensure that anyone who lives with us feels safe and secure here and that they enjoy every day.
I like nothing more than to be given the opportunity to show off Canterbury House and this week I was honoured to be able to welcome the mayor of Faversham, Alison Reynolds into our home. Alison had graciously agreed to preside over a formal opening ceremony and after she had cut the ribbon, under the watchful eye of our staff and residents, she took the time to look around the home and chat with anyone who wanted to speak with her.
To celebrate this auspicious occasion, we opened our doors to visitors for the remainder of the day and were delighted to receive a visit from our local GPS as well as NHS clinical commissioning staff and many others including resident families. As if that wasn’t enough, we also had a very charismatic gentleman from Kinetic Circus come along to teach us circus skills, imagine our delight when our very own mayor asked to join in. Turns out she is quite the dab hand at plate spinning.
The plate spinning did prove easier than the juggling, which was difficult to master but so much fun to watch, we spent more time chasing the balls than we did juggling with them. Our chef prepared sandwiches and cakes for our guests, and these were gratefully received by all. As we gathered to enjoy the refreshments the mayor told us how impressed she was with the home, even stating that she fully intends to
book herself a room here if the time comes. High praise indeed. It was heart-warming to hear visitors describing our home as beautiful, it was likened to a five-star hotel on more than one occasion and another visitor thought it was like being on a cruise ship. But even more heart-warming was seeing just how proud our residents are to be living here. I am all too aware that there can be an element of embarrassment surrounding accepting help. People are afraid to be seen as having failed, so to see the residents chomping at the bit to show off their home was touching. We have created something very special here at Canterbury House, I know it, the team knows it and the residents know it and now thanks to a very successful open day, many more people know it. If you or a loved one are looking for residential care, we would love to show you around, we can’t guarantee a lesson incircusskills,butwecanpromisecake,asmile and a home that’ll blow your socks off. Our open day was held in conjunction with COVID guidelines.
Our staff and residents are double vaccinated and social distancing rules, and our mask policy were adhered to. If you would like more information from Canterbury House call us on 01795 718740 or email info@ halcyoncarehomes.co.uk.
Housebuilding along the coast should be halted until the seafront’s under-pressure sewer network is vastly improved, a councillor believes.
This comes as swimmers were once again urged not to enter the sea between Herne Bay and Whitstable on Sunday – just two weeks after raw sewage was released along the same stretch.
Statistics show Southern Water discharged so-called “wastewater” from its combined sewer overflows (CSOS) off the coasts of both towns for as long as 18 hours at the weekend.
And during the latest leak the under-fire firm, along with the Environment Agency, urged visitors to the coast not to enter the sea over the following 24 hours.
Reacting to the incident, outspoken Seasalter councillor Ashley Clark told the Gazette: “It’s completely and utterly reprehensible.
“Bearing in mind we had no appreciable rain in the 10 or so days before that, why did we have this? The tanks should have been empty and been able to cope with that.
“The beaches are blighted. You see it on Facebook, people have renamed Whitstable and called it **** stable on sea.
“What we shouldn’t be doing is building huge numbers of houses unless we are absolutely certain it won’t aggravate the situation.
“It currently stands that we are building houses along the seafront which can only make it worse.”
Southern Water’s website says its CSOS do not release raw sewage. Instead, it stresses that rain and wastewater which is “mainly from washing machines, showers and dishwashers” - are discharged.
A similar warning was issued to swimmers in both towns a fortnight ago, after an electrical fault caused a major
leak from a Southern Water sewage treatment works in Swalecliffe.
At the time, the city council urged people not to go for a dip between Tankerton and Herne Bay after a four-hour discharge.
And last month, Southern Water was slapped with a record £90 million fine for unleashing up to 21 billion litres of sewage into protected water.
City council spokesman Leo Whitlock says bosses from the authority “share in everyone’s frustration, especially in light of recent events”.
“Both the Environment Agency and Southern Water warned swimmers to avoid the area from Whitstable to Herne Bay, which has become disappointingly normal after heavy rain,” the communications chief explained.
“We continue to monitor the situation closely and to push Southern Water to do all it can to minimise the effects of its operation on our coastline.
“While we continue to lobby Southern Water and the EA, it is the EA that has the power to take action against Southern Water.”
A Southern Water spokesman said on Sunday: “What has happened today is as a result of heavy rainfall in a very short period of time.
“CSOS are an integral part of the processes designed to manage wastewater nationwide. Their use in times of heavy rainfall is designed to minimise the risk of internal flooding to homes and businesses.
“Their use is closely regulated by the Environment Agency.
“We will carry out a full investigation to understand what, in addition to the extreme weather, may have contributed to the flooding our customers