We continue with our review of the events that shaped the year 2021 - some sad, some happy, and some disturbing.

To see what happened in the first half of the year in Maidstone and Malling, visit our story from yesterday. here.

July

That month a tremendous fire ripped through and empty 200-year-old listed home in Sutton Valence, leaving just a pile of bricks.

Belringham House had still been full of antique furniture and personal knick-knacks although its owner, Sydney Prall, had died two years before. Firefighters were at the scene for 33 hours.

The following week, another huge blaze started at the MuMu bar and restaurant in Maidstone's Week Street. The fire took hold in the middle of the night and it took 80 firefighters to bring it under control. Fortunately much of the building was saved. Many neighbouring businesses had to stay closed the next day because of the disruption.

Meanwhile Cranbrook, usually the epitome of rural respectability, was described as "like something out of the Wild West" after a spate of vandalism, that had even seen one car parked in the Co-op car park turned on its side.

Parish Council chairman Kim Fletcher said the town was suffering an "epidemic" of ant-social behaviour.

August

The month began with emergency vehicles dashing to the Hermes parcel depot on the Quarry Wood Industrial Estate in Aylesford after reports of a chemical leak. The building had to be evacuated and 15 employees were checked over by paramedics after coming into contact with the mystery substance leaking from one of the parcels.The Hazardous Area Response Team was called out and neighbouring business told to keep staff indoors, but they were eventually stood down after the leaking substance was identified as fabric conditioner.

Cranbrook seemed to have regained its traditional composure, with the big story there this month being not vandalism but the size of the town's double yellow lines. It seems Cranbrook, which has the second highest concentration of listed buildings of any community in Kent, had long been allowed to have "heritage" double yellows, which are narrower and paler in colour.

But contractors installing speed bumps in The Hill, repainted them with the standard size and colour, causing local councillor Sean Holden to see not only bright yellow, but red. He said the lines degraded the environment and caused a "seizure of the eyesight", and would have to be replaced.

It was finally time to say goodbye to Elmer - or in fact to the 82 colourfully decorated Elmers that had festooned Maidstone over the summer, delighting parents and children alike. Thousands of people had traipsed the Elmer Trail trying to visit as many of the individually designed elephants as possible, but finally they were all gathered in one place at Lockmeadow for a farewell party, before being auctioned to raise money for the Heart of Kent Hospice.

The month ended on a happy note as mum Laura Hollman travelled with her daughter Mia to mark the Cornwallis Academy student's sixteenth birthday with a nostalgic trip to the spot where she had been born - on the back seat of Laura's partner's BMW. Laura, 22 at the time, had been on her way from her home in Shepway to Pembury Hospital when it became apparent that Mia wasn't going to wait. She was delivered in Church Street, Teston, with the help of a paramedic who arrived by motorbike.

September

Jason Slender had two narrow escapes at the start of August. First of all the 49-year-old had to flee his home in Bicknor Road, Park Wood, with his family, when the house next door caught fire. But when that property turned out to be a cannabis factory, police officers initially arrested Jason and he spent 45 minutes sitting in handcuffs in the back of a police car wearing his West Ham onesie, until the police finally realised he had nothing to do with the property and was entirely innocent.

Villagers in Wateringbury were in tears when it became time to say goodbye to local shopkeepers Benny and Rupal Vyas, who had run the Handy Store in Bow Terrace for the previous 16 years. Shoppers were grateful for the community spirit the couple had shown, especially during the pandemic lockdown when they had hand-delivered groceries to all their customers. The couple were showered with gifts to take to the new home in Crawley.

Maidstone's new mosque was completed - three years after the old building had been demolished. The new three-storey building in Mote Road cost £1.2m and was opened by Maidstone and the Weald MP Helen Grant who told the Imam, Muhammed Usmani: "You have created a beautiful sanctuary."

Headcorn villagers campaigning to save the redundant Methodist Church in the village from development won a partial victory when Maidstone Council agreed that part of the building could be listed as a community asset. The immediate result was that the building was withdrawn from an auction sale, and campaigners now have six months to raise the purchase price - estimated to be around £300,000 - themselves.

October

Tonbridge and Malling council surprised everyone by voting unanimously to refuse developer Croudace planning permission for a 330-home estate near Barming Station off Hermitage Lane. It was the first time an application along the road had been rejected in five years. The decision has now gone to appeal.

The Gypsy community was shaken to its core after a late-night crash left four members of one family dead and another in hospital with serious injuries. Johnny Cash, Johnboy Cash, Miles Cash and Jacko Cosgrove all died, while Jerry Cash was injured when their vehicle struck a tree in Lenham Road.

Sad shoppers decried "the end of an era" when Marks and Spencer announced it would be closing its one remaining story in Maidstone's town centre after 100 years of trading there. The news came just over a year after the retailer opened an out-of-town centre at Eclipse Park in Maidstone. The Week Street store will close in January.

November

The nation was in shock as it emerged at the trial of David Fuller that not only had he murdered two women in Tunbridge Wells 34 years previously, but he had also sexually assaulted at least 100 female corpses in a hospital mortuary while working as an electrician for the Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust. The Home Secretary Sajid Javd announced a review into how it could have been allowed to happen.

Tonbridge and Malling council finally bowed to the inevitable and withdrew its draft Local Plan which it had submitted to the Planning Inspectorate in 2019. Inspectors rejected the plan and the borough is now forced to start again. Meanwhile, housing targets have increased by 21% and the council will have to find room for an additional 2,547 homes.

There were cheers all round when Maidstone council announced it had reached an agreement with the owners of the burnt-out floating restaurant on the Medway just below the Archbishops Palace for its removal. The restaurant opened in 2009 as The Barge and later became Embankments, but had been nothing but an eyesore since it was damaged in a fire in February 2020.

December

This month we reported on how 30 amenity and residents groups across Kent had come together to hold a A Day Of Action in a bid to Save Kent's Green Spaces. They included Save Capel in the Weald and Against Lidsing Development and the Valley Conservation Society in Maidstone. Between them the groups were fighting plans that would see another 15,000 acres of Kent's agricultural land swallowed up by housing.

Cranbrook's vandals were back in the news. After three catapult attacks on a mobile breast screening unit, the service was pulled from the town, where it had been visiting for 10 years. A decision which patients described as "heartbreaking."

Maidstone's Park and Ride bus service became the latest casualty of the Covid epidemic after Arriva announced it would end the service in February. The bus company had failed to persuade Maidstone council to give it the extra subsidy it needed to help it through the pandemic in the face of falling passenger numbers.