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downsmail.co.uk Royal opening of new hospital
IT was an emotional moment for Dr Phyllis Holt as the ribbon was cut on Maidstone’s new state of the art hospital. The Kent Institute of Medicine
and Surgery (KIMS) in Newnham Court, near J7 of the M20, which will offer specialist consultative and acute care in areas such as car- diology, cardiac surgery, neurol- ogy, neurosurgery, surgical oncology and complex or- thopaedics, was officially opened by HRH The Duke of Gloucester. The project was coordinated by consultant cardiologist Dr Holt
with local hospital trusts and com- missioning bodies, serving 2.3 mil- lion potential patients across Kent, East Sussex and south London. The Dukewas given a tour of the
and her husband Franz Dickmann. Built at a cost of £95m, it will
offer private healthcare as well as services to the NHS by agreement
new facility by its chief executive Jayne Cassidy, with whom he is pictured. He was then introduced to con- sultants who will work at the hos- pital. He also met the Mayor of Maidstone, Cllr Clive English, Maidstone Council’s chief execu- tive Alison Broom and KCC chair- man Cllr Eric Hotson. More than 300 clinical staff will
work at the hospital and the first patients are due to be admitted at the end of April. The Duke congratulated the Dickmanns. “I hope they feel very proud of
their achievement – and so they should,” he said.
BOXLEY parish councillors rec- ommended that the new access road to KIMS and the proposed Newnham Park development be named Newnham CourtWay after the house and farm that used to stand there.
Gypsies allowed to stay on site despite flood concern
MAIDSTONE Council has over- looked an objection by the Envi- ronment Agency over flooding and allowed gypsies to remain on a site in Headcorn permanently. James Baker’s temporary occu-
pation of Quarter Paddocks in Bletchenden Road ended in July last year, and the planning com- mittee granted him consent to re- main on the site permanently while also increasing the number of caravans permitted from five to six. Atotal of 15 people now occupy
the four plots. Despite the Environment Agency’s concerns, council officers said the site had never flooded and the EA’s objection related to an ap-
A 2011 study by Maidstone Coun- cil established a need for 105 per- manent gypsy pitches between October 2011 and March 2016. As of March this year, 57 permanent pitches had been granted, leaving a shortfall of 48. Until these pitches have been provided, the
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