Podcast: New restaurant at Layham Garden Centre in Staple between Canterbury and Sandwich due to open this summer

News that a new restaurant in a garden centre between Canterbury and Sandwich is due to open this summer is one of our most read stories on the website today.

Layham Garden Centre in Staple was taken over by the Johnson family five years ago with the hope of turning it into a community hub for local people.

Also in today’s podcast, there are fresh concerns some school children are becoming “feral” while others are falling behind, due to the ongoing effects of the pandemic.

There have been reports across the country of students returning from home schooling with poor attitudes, and an inability to cope in a classroom. We’ve been speaking to Matt Paterson who’s head teacher of Shears Green Junior School in Gravesend.

A man’s been charged with two counts of attempted murder following a stabbing in Rochester.

A 19 year-old was flown to hospital with serious injuries and another was also hurt on the High Street near Star Hill on Friday.

KentOnline can reveal people who drop litter in parts of Kent have racked up fines of more than half-a million pounds in the past year.

It follows a crackdown in Canterbury, Herne Bay and Whitstable. Kate Faulkner joins us with the details.

As mental health awareness week gets under way, a Kent GP says he’s seeing cases of anxiety in his surgery on a very regular basis.

Dr Jack Jacobs works in Hamstreet near Ashford and reckons it’s down to a combination of the fall-out from the pandemic, and current cost of living crisis.

And, the new owners of a pub near Maidstone say they’re looking forward to working with locals to make it a real hotspot.

Stepbrothers Rick Bucur and Carlo Podac have launched the recently renamed Duke of Edinburgh in Barming.