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BBC Radio Kent

Julia George

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Call 0800 756 1111, email julia@bbc.co.uk or text 81333 (start your message with KENT).

Join Julia George on BBC Radio Kent for challenging, topical conversation on the stories that you are talking about. 

The Big Phone-in starts at nine and continues throughout the morning, call 0800 756 1111, email julia@bbc.co.uk, text 81333 start your message with KENT.

Julia George: Have you panic bought fuel?

Have you panic bought fuel?

BBC Radio Kent - Julia George, Have you panic bought fuel?

Clare McDonnell sits in with chat, your calls plus Kent news and events as they happen.

Have you panic bought fuel?

The latest figures show that demand yesterday for diesel was up 77pc and petrol up 172pc on normal sales, that is according to the independent filling station group the Retail Motor Industry. 

Cabinet Officer Minister Francis Maude has been accused of "creating a crisis" after suggesting we should all stock up on petrol ahead of a threatened strike by fuel tanker drivers.

Today, the government line is, fill up your tank rather than waiting until it is almost empty.

But what is it like where you are in Kent? Have you found yourself stuck in long queues? Did you need to be there? Or did you rush out and fill up because you panicked? Because you thought if I do not, I will be left high and dry, not able to get to work, do the school run, get away for the weekend?

But a strike has not even been called yet, a strike date is not set.  Easter strikes are unlikely because the unions have to give seven days' notice, so what kind of madness has taken hold of us as a nation?

The government has announced it is accepting nearly all of the twenty-eight recommendations for reviving our High Streets, made by the retail expert, Mary Portas.

£10m is to be made available to bring empty shops back into use, but despite Mary Portas carrying out much of her research in Margate and it having the one of the highest rates of empty shops in the country, not a penny of that of funding is coming to the East Kent town.

Gravesham, Medway, Swale, Shepway and Tonbridge and Malling will all get £100,000 to spend on improving High Streets in their boroughs, but Thanet missed out completely on a share of money.  

Margate town centre has the second highest rate of empty shops in the country with over a third of them boarded up and empty.  Dartford - where 1 in 4 shops are empty - also missed out on funding.

All hopes now are pinned to a second round of money - The Portas Pilots - where 12 towns or cities will be awarded a share of a smaller pot of money - £1 million pounds. Bids close today.

We speak to the man behind Margate's bid  Robin Vaughn Lyons.

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