21/10/2013 Inside Out South East

A year in the life of the new Police and Crime Commissioners for Kent.

The Youth Commissioner, that was a complete and total disaster and you

made yourself look like a laughing stock. Is that true? No. The Sussex

archives brought together for the first time. We discover an Aladdin

's cave of more than 900 years of history. I think we certainly have

one of the largest collections of Kipling in the world and to be able

to harness that is something that we are very proud to do. And what have

the Greens done for Brighton? We have delivered or are on course to

deliver three quarters of our manifesto promises already, only two

years in. I am Natalie Graham with untold stories closer to home from

all around the South East. This is Inside Out.

Hello. I'm in the centre of Maidstone in the heart of Kent. I'm

back later, but first up, it's almost one year since our Kent and

Sussex Police forces each had an elected American`style Police

Commissioner. So how has it been working out? In the second of his

reports, Vince Rodgers now turns his attention to Kent. I can understand

where you're coming from. But you need to calm down. It is Saturday

night in Maidstone. And most people are just having a good time. The

best place. I love Maidstone. It's her birthday, we are celebrating her

birthday weekend. And they are doing it under the watchful eye of

Sergeant John Marshall. I will walk you to the taxi, me and you. Come

on. We will walk to a taxi. And you're going home. There is now a

new system which strives to ensure that Sergeant Marshall and the whole

of the Kent Police force deliver what the people of Kent want. For

nearly a year, they have had an elected Police and Crime

Commissioner. Ann Barnes. The idea behind having Police and Crime

Commissioners was to be able to vote one person in to hold the police

force to account on local people's behalf. And to make sure the force

reflected the style of policing that local people wanted. This job used

to be done by the Kent Police Authority. A group of rather

faceless individuals who were unelected to the job. Now there is

just one elected person. Ann Barnes. Let's find out what she has been

doing since she was voted in last November. I am Kent's Police

Commissioner. Are you? What do you think about your police service

here? I am over Kent like a rash! The job involves a constant round of

meetings, finding out what the public wants, and then trying to

make the police deliver. She travels around the county in her old camper

van`come`office, nicknamed Ann Force One. I go out in my bus, my

second`hand camper van, which is a bit of a joke, but I don't care.

Today she is meeting the Maidstone Rotary Club. Some members are

worried about the effects of late night boozing, also known as the

night`time economy. 28% of the people, particularly young people,

arrive in Maidstone already over the legal limit through taking up cheap

alcohol from supermarkets and the like. It's Saturday night in

Maidstone town centre. Sergeant Marshall has had a call that a man

has been assaulted in a nightclub. And two men were seen running away.

Someone hit me on the hand with a bottle, mate. We are not here for

trouble. The reason we have our hands on you is there is a bloke

with wounds to his face. And you were seen running away. He was going

to kill us. The town centre team in Maidstone keep a lid on the

night`time economy. It is huge. Right, boys. At this stage you're

both going to be nicked for assault. You're joking?! Why am I being

nicked for assault? I have to go to the hospital. Stop it. I am being

nicked for assault? Listen to me. You are being nicked for assault.

I'm bleeding like a pig and the fella is arresting me?! One main

opportunity for Ann to hold the police to account is at the public

bimonthly Governance Board meeting with the Chief Constable, during

which he says he has seen an increase in violence since November

last. The key areas at the moment are Chatham, Folkestone, Maidstone

and Margate. What have they got in common? Just a very vibrant

night`time economy. Back in the vibrant night`time economy of

Maidstone, Sergeant Marshall speaks to a security man from the club who

has seen the injuries of another man involved in the incident.

Ann Barnes says her major achievement is finding the money to

put an extra 100 uniformed posts on the streets, but at the same time

the force is losing more officers due to 20% budget cuts by central

government. Also, she commissioned a report from Her Majesty 's

Inspectorate of Constabulary into the distortion of crime statistics

by Kent Police. But, of course, the one thing that everyone knows Ann

Barnes for is her decision to recruit a Youth Commissioner, Paris

Brown. That all went very wrong after Paris resigned after

allegations of tweets she made. I don't think one mistake should...

Sorry... The Conservative's Craig McKinlay came second to Ann Barnes

in her election. Quite frankly, she made the position of PCC into a

laughing stock. It was wholly badly done and there did not seem to be

any basic fundamental checks on what this young girl had been writing on

social media and the internet. It seems to be woefully inadequate. And

it came back and bit her very badly. The Youth Commissioner, he says that

was a complete and total disaster and you made yourself look like a

laughing stock. Did you? Is that true? No, it was a genuine attempt

to find a young face to work with young people. You only have to look

at the young people who are victims of cyber crime, look at the young

people who end up in the criminal justice system, and that was a

genuine attempt to do that and I am going to do it. There will be a

Youth Commissioner by the end of the year. Let's look at the money. The

Police Commissioner holds the police fund, which pays for local policing.

The great majority of that comes from the Home Office. But some of it

comes from the council tax and that is called the precept. Ann Barnes

put up the precept by 2%. She actually managed to make the role

more expensive on the public purse. And quite rightly, that is not what

this is meant to be. If you talk about 2%, that is ?2.71 per

household per year, and that brought nearly 100 uniformed posts. People

want visible uniformed policing and the only way to get that is to pay

for it. It seems to me that all Ann has done, she has the glitzy Ann

Force One that she parades around in and it seems to be a lot of glitz

and glamour but not actually much getting down to the job of making

Kent safer. Glitz and glamour? He says I'm glamorous? Thank you very

much! Well, let's get down to basics, because I shall deliver my

manifesto commitments. I made promises to the people of Kent and I

never break my promises. That is not glitz, that is not glamour, that is

doing my job. As the night draws to a close, Sergeant Marshall is

dealing with the drunks, taking them into custody. You said to be, go

home. It is not about taking them into custody. Ann Barnes carries on

meeting the people of Kent. Hello, I am Ann, I am the Police

Commissioner. I was the college darts champion! And the next

election for the Kent Commissioner will be held in May 2016. You like

your job? I love my job. Vince Rodgers reporting. Coming up

on Inside Out: Who will you vote for? The Greens. Because I think

they have started something and I think we need them. Terrible. Why?

The parking situation in Brighton. The 20 miles speed limit. Next up,

we are delving into times past. From the dark secrets of witchcraft to

the emotional letters of a famous son before he was killed in battle.

I have been exploring the archives of Sussex before they open to the

public next month. It is moving in day. The Keep ` a grand design on

the edge of Brighton. And there is lots to move in. Six miles of maps

and plans, photographs and films, prints and drawings. Three archives'

worth of material from different parts of Sussex and all coming

together in a sparkling new home. Where, for the very first time, you

and I will be able to see them under one roof. Every one of these

documents is like a piece of gold in a treasure trove of information.

Each one tells a story of Sussex past. It is opening its doors in

November but, for now, the documents sit like presents just waiting to be

opened. And some of the delights waiting to be discovered include the

largest collection of Rudyard Kipling material in the world. Born

in 1855, Kipling spent his life in Sussex. His stories the Jungle Book

and Kim made him one of the most famous writers in England. This is

one of the first Just So Stories? A first edition of the Just So

Stories. What I love about this book is that it is a copy he gave to his

children. Just So Stories, for Elsie and John. By their daddy. It just

shows what a strong family they were. These were stories that he

wrote and originally he had told his children and his daughter had often

said, I want the stories but "just so", tell them as you always tell

them. So they became the Just So Stories. His poem If was voted as

the nation 's favourite not that long ago, so I think Kipling is

still very much in the people 's consciousness. The Keep is home to

one of the oldest collections of photographs in the South East. These

photos show the last days of the slums which once stood in a now

desirable area of Brighton. They were built in 1871 to accommodate an

exploding population. But these pictures were taken in the 1930s,

when the buildings were about to be demolished and their occupants

rehoused. So we have got some human faces close`up for once? These

earlier photographs are here as a reminder of the fact that many of

the people living in these squalid conditions in Brighton where either

fishermen or descended from somebody who was from a fishing family and

they are significant because they are relatively rare examples of the

working classes being captured in photography.

Today, we have been tempted by witchcraft. We're going back to the

16th century to a story of suspicion and superstition right here in East

Sussex. We're going back several hundred years to talk about witches?

1607. Who is accused of what? There are two ladies, Susan, and she had

very odd visions at night so she went to Ann Taylor, her neighbour,

because she knew that Ann Taylor was a healer. She said, OK,

the garden and set sage, as they called it. They were planting sage.

People were very concerned and thought this sounds like witchcraft

and that is how the whole trial got going. Susan was found guilty and

sentenced to death. But she was pregnant at the time, so she stayed

in prison and was not executed, and in the end she was pardoned. It's

extremely rare to find a witchcraft trial in local archives. Getting

easy access to original documents like these is what The Keep is all

about. We've talked about Rudyard Kipling and how much he loved

children. This is a very poignant part of the story which a lot of

people would be familiar with. His son going off to fight in the Great

War. Indeed, indeed. His son, John, who was eager to join up, as many

young men were during the First World War, he wanted to go off and

fight, and found it very difficult to join up because he had such

appalling eyesight. And in the end, Kipling actually used some of his

influence with friends of his to get his son into the Irish Guards. But,

ultimately, it became a very sad story as John went missing at the

Battle of Looes, and was presumed dead after that. We have pretty much

all of John's letters to his parents from when he was a very young boy,

through to the very last letters that he wrote to them from the

front. Of course, he didn't know that would be the last letter he

wrote, so there's something very poignant about this, the little

things that he's talking about. You have no idea what enormous issues

depend on these next few days. Oh, dear, this will be my last letter,

most likely, for some time. Because we will not get any time for writing

in the next week. Well, so long, old dears. Dear love, John. How sad.

Kipling never recovered from the loss of his son. He went on to try

and support other soldiers. His pain was etched into his poem, My Boy

Jack. Have you news of my boy Jack? Not this tide. When do you think

that he'll come back? Not with this wind blowing and this tide.

And so, The Keep is a hiding place for many other Sussex's well`kept

secrets. And who knows? Maybe a few more to be discovered.

Now, they were the first Green`led council in the country, elected on

the promise of a fresh start from Brighton and Hove. But, midway

through their tenure, they've been rocked by a series of controversies.

So, has the Green experiment worked? John Hunt reports. If you're not

nervous, you're not going to do a good job, is my general view on

things. Thank you. It's a big day for the leader of Brighton and Hove

Council. If I wasn't nervous, I'd be worried. The leader of our first

ever Green Council, on his home turf, in his own ward, Jason Kitcat.

APPLAUSE. His council has a ?700 million budget and provides services

for more than a quarter of a million people. Today, he's still in the

Green Party conference that, in spite of a huge squeeze on public

finances, he is fulfilling his promises.

We've delivered huge amounts. We have delivered, or are on course to

deliver, three quarters of our manifesto promises already, only two

years in. But, the journey has been a rough one. Most challenging of all

was a strike by the city's refuse workers and street cleaners over a

shake`up of allowances earlier this year. It was a dispute that got

personal. Kitcat out! Yes, there were stickers all over the city with

my face on them. I was mocked up with a Kit Kat wrapper and stuff.

There was people surrounding the town Hall shouting Kit Kat out, and

stuff. So, I would say it was personal, yeah. But, the dispute not

only upset residents and council workers. It also caused divisions

within the ruling Green Party. With a number of Green councillors and

the city's Green MP, Caroline Lucas, taking sides with the striking

workers. And in May, as the bin dispute was raging, one councillor,

Alex Phillips, attempted to bring down her leader by seeking support

from the Labour opposition via Twitter, for a plot to oust him.

Warren Morgan was the councillor Alex Phillips had tweeted. I was

shocked. I knew that the Greens were bitterly divided. As we subsequently

found out, they were not even speaking to each other. So, I was

shocked that they would approach someone from an opposition group to

try and oust the leader of the council. That's not the way thata

mature political party conducts politics. I was pretty disappointed

but it was one councillor acting foolishly. She has apologised

profusely and that apology has been accepted. We have moved on.

Differences of opinion and political divisions in the council chamber are

far from unusual. Cllr Phillips didn't want to appear in this

programme, but, given her Tweets, I wanted to know`how much support

Jason Kit Kat has the support in his own party. I sent an e`mail to all

20 Green councillors, asking them if they have confidence in their

leader. Not one of them responded. So, you have the full confidence of

all of your councillors? Yes. All of them? Every single one? I don't

speak to every single one on a daily basis, do I? But, I have the

confidence of the group through our democratic system, yes. The bin

dispute hasn't been the only controversy. There were protests

over council plans to fell an old elm tree that resulted in a U`turn.

A Christian counsellor was expelled from the Green group after she

refused to back equal marriage. And the party has offered councillors

mediation sessions to help them with their differences. I completely

accept that those episodes haven't done us any favours. The reporting

of internal disputes and disagreements are never good. People

want us to focus on the job of delivering for their city and that

is what I am focused on. It's a Saturday in Brighton and I'm setting

up a market stall in Upper Gardner Street. But I'm not selling

anything. I'm actually here to do some market research. I want to know

what the residents in the city make of the Greens' record. Remember,

it's the first time the party has ever run a British council.

Terrible. Why? OK, where do you start? I think they've done as good

a job as you can within the context of local government. I'm not happy

with the travel situation. I think they've done a reasonable job.

Terrible. Terrible? Why terrible? Well, the parking situation in

Brighton. The 20 mile speed limit. Trying to be balanced about it, is

there anything good they've done? Anything good? I've got to think

about that. Anything good? I would vote for the Greens, because I think

they've started something, and I think we need them. To get a more

representative gauge of the public mood, we decided to commission a

large`scale opinion poll. The test of any political party is if they

can pursue their agenda and still get re`elected. The results of our

telephone poll on are in. Of course, there are 19 months ago until the

next election. But if one were called now, how would people vote?

1004 residents of Brighton and Hove were interviewed by telephone

earlier this month. The poll suggests Labour would win the

election with a 38% share of the vote. With 25%, the Conservatives

would be in second place, leaving the Greens in third with 21%, a 12%

drop on their 2011 results. A 12% drop on 2011. UKIP and the Liberal

Democrats would come in fourth and fifth place respectively. Do you

accept that your support has gone, as that opinion poll seems to

suggest? Well, there has shift, and of course, in government,

as you take decisions, there will be people you take with you and some

you don't. But I know that we have won support from some areas. For

example, former Lib Dems, who we didn't have before. So it is a

shift. A lot of people are very open to voting for us, but they want to

be convinced. The poll suggests that, in just two years, Brighton

and Hove has fallen out of love with the Greens. But why? I'm joining a

walking tour of the city with deputy leader, Cllr Ian Davey, and a group

of Green delegates. In April this year we put up 20 miles an hour

speed limits across the whole of the city centre. The most visible change

the Greens have made is to the way people get around. 20 mile an hour

zones have been put up across large parts of the city. New cycle lanes

and bus lanes have been opened and dangerous junctions have been

transformed. The things I'm pleased with in these last two years is that

more people are are cycling and more people are

using public transport to get in and around the city. Road safety is

improving and air quality is improving. But, the poll suggests

that transport is the most contentious issue, with one in five

people saying it is the single most important factor influencing their

vote. Congestion and a 20 mile an hour zones figure highly, but the

biggest reason people give for their choice of vote is the cost and

availability of parking. Conservative councillor Geoffrey

Theobald says the Greens' parking policy is hurting the city's

businesses. The average cost of leaving your car for nine hours in

the council's city centre car parks has increased by 17% this year. This

car park has seen that price rise by ?4.50 a day, more than 30% up. The

Greens being the Greens decided to extract the maximum they possibly

can from motorists and to put the charge is right up. Consequently,

it's empty, most of the time. The Greens say their administration has

spent ?4 millionrefurbishing car parks and the increased prices are

to pay for that. They say some other car park prices in the city have

actually gone down. Today, Jason Kitcat is in a meeting of the local

economic partnership. I am Jason Kitcat and I am the leader of

Brighton and Hove Council. Whilst the Conservatives fear that the

Greens policies are harming the economy of the city, so far,

according to business leaders, the general trend suggests otherwise.

Relatively speaking, the city has suffered the recession well.

Unemployment is under control. Even youth unemployment is down. The city

has produced huge numbers of private sector jobs. We don't see, even on

the high street, the retail vacancy ratethat we see in other places. We

are doing well. Where the council is also doing well, it seems, is in

making the city a nice place to live. The poll suggests two thirds

of residents think they have been successful in this area. And,

environmentalists are prepared to give the authority an above`average

mark as well.overall they have done pretty well on the environmental

front. I would probably grade them with a B. They've done some good

stuff, they progressed a lot of transport infrastructure, probably

faster than other administrations. But there are still big issues, like

air quality, that they have got to get to grips with. And issues around

recycling as well. The jury is still out as to how well they are

performing on that. Jason Kitcat says his councillors have been

through a steep learning curve, and his party is a work in progress. The

real question is, will the public be prepared to back them in 2015? It

would be arrogant to assume anything at the election. That is for the

people to decide. We have a strong record. I think we should go into

that confident about making the case that four more years would be good

for the city and people should support that. Now, if you want any

more information about tonight's show, you can visit our Kent and

Sussex websites. You can also watch the programme again on the BBC

iPlayer. Coming up next week. When JFK came to Sussex. The Politicians.

It was almost like an Indian summer. Here was John F. Kennedy on, unknown

to him, of course, on his last visit to Britain, to Europe. He would be

assassinated a few months later. The people. I was the one person that

had that key, to the room that had the hotline to the President in it,

and it crossed my mind to open it and to say, high, there. And the man

in charge of security. I was very impressed with JFK. He was such a

nice guide to work with. He was very pleasant and chatty. Just months

before that fateful day in Dallas. We have exclusive access to the

untold stories behind President John F. Kennedy's Howerd to Howard ``

Harold Macmillan's country home. That's all from Asper tonight. ``

from us for tonight. Hello, I'm Ellie Crisell with your

90 second update. The UK is getting its first nuclear power plant for 20

years. Hinkley Point C in Somerset got the go-ahead today. Ministers

say it will help lower energy bills but critics argue investment in

renewable sources would be better. Meanwhile, N-power has become the

third energy supplier to raise its gusts. Dual-fuel bills will go up by

over ?100 a year from December. 82-year old Mohammed Saleem was

stabbed on his way home from a Birmingham Mosque. Today a Ukrainian

student pleaded guilty to his murder. He also admitted plotting

explosions. Fears of a mega fire in Australia. Experts say three

bushfires in New South Wales could merge into one. A state of

emergency's been declared. 30,000 tonnes in six months. That's how

much food waste Tesco says it generates. It estimates just under

half of all bakery items end up in the bin - it's promised to do more

to tackle Hello, I'm Rob Smith, here's the

latest in the South