ShepwayVox Dissent is not a Crime

Update: Otterpool Park Water Plan Faces Climate and Supply Questions

June 15, 2026 // 1 Comment

Otterpool Park is not just a housing scheme. It is an 8,500-home test of whether a seriously water-stressed part of Kent can absorb a new town, a business district, schools, [...]

The Long Read: South Kent Energy Park’s 2,100-Acre Solar Gamble on Romney Marsh

June 14, 2026 // 0 Comments

Low Carbon says its South Kent Energy Park could power the equivalent of 140,000 homes. Its own scoping report also shows a much bigger scheme, on arable Marsh land, much of [...]

The Long Read: KCC Banks Solar Farm Cash as Reform Says No to Romney Marsh Panels

June 14, 2026 // 0 Comments

Reform-led Kent County Council says it wants to protect Kent farmland from excessive solar development. Fair enough. But the council also owns solar farms, including a [...]

Cllr David Wimble’s New Romney Housing U-Turn Exposes Local Plan Hypocrisy

June 12, 2026 // 1 Comment

Cllr David Wimble (pictured) now says he’ll fight proposals for up to 110 homes on farmland north of Cockreed Lane, New Romney. Fair enough. Residents are entitled to ask [...]

New Romney Homes Plan Tests Kent’s Water-Stressed Future

June 12, 2026 // 0 Comments

A proposed 110-home scheme on farmland at New Romney has landed in the middle of Kent’s bigger water argument: how can we keep building in one of the most water-stressed [...]

Kent Travel Saver: Reform’s “People of Kent” Promise Fails the £35 Bus Test

June 11, 2026 // 0 Comments

Kent County Council’s £35 Kent Travel Saver rise survived scrutiny on Thursday. But the meeting left one hard question idling at the stop: when Reform says it will put [...]

FHDC Procurement Card Receipts: Dinner, Drinks and the Missing Audit Trail

June 11, 2026 // 2 Comments

The council’s FOI response has answered some questions about procurement-card restaurant spending. It has also given us a gastro-pub filed as transport, a missing lunch [...]

Folkestone Tennis Courts: Historic Davis Cup Town Faces Public Access Gap

June 11, 2026 // 0 Comments

As Queen’s gets under way and Wimbledon looms, Folkestone doesn’t lack tennis history. It doesn’t even lack tennis courts. What it lacks is the simple thing that [...]

BBC Cash and the Iliffe Money Trail Behind Kent Council Reporting

June 10, 2026 // 4 Comments

Kent needs reporters in council chambers. It also needs to know how BBC licence-fee money, paid to private media companies to keep that reporting alive, moves through the [...]

Reform UK’s Flag-and-Fury Playbook Is Already Running Kent

June 10, 2026 // 0 Comments

How a politics of flags, enemies, press bans and “common sense” is being tested from Westminster to County Hall in Kent There’s a moment when politics stops being [...]

Exclusive: Homes England Secures Hillhurst Farm Land for Otterpool Homes

June 9, 2026 // 2 Comments

The next Otterpool Park housing move appears to sit in a very specific triangle of land at Hillhurst Farm, just south of the railway, east of Westenhanger station and around [...]

Foxwood’s £86.7m Homes Plan Leaves Hythe With No Affordable Homes

June 9, 2026 // 1 Comment

A former public school site in Hythe is heading back to Folkestone & Hythe’s Planning Committee. The homes remain. The affordable housing doesn’t. And behind the [...]

Kent Travel Saver Rise: Poorest Families Hit Hardest

June 9, 2026 // 1 Comment

Kent County Council says a £35 rise is needed to keep its student bus pass scheme sustainable. But its own figures show the increase lands more than four times harder, [...]

KCC’s £133m Family Silver Sell-Off

June 8, 2026 // 0 Comments

Kent County Council says it has already raised more than £84m from surplus-property disposals since 2021/22. Now the Reform UK-run authority is lining up a further £49m, [...]

The Long Read: Kent Voted for the Border — Now the M20 Is Paying the Price

June 7, 2026 // 0 Comments

Operation Brock is meant to keep Kent moving when Dover and Eurotunnel come under pressure. But the deeper evidence shows something more uncomfortable: a national border [...]

Kent’s PWLB Debt Mountain Grows £503m as Medway Surges Past KCC

June 7, 2026 // 0 Comments

Government lending data shows Kent and Medway principal councils’ unpaid Public Works Loan Board principal rose from £1.14bn to £1.64bn in five years. The biggest shift [...]

Kent Adds More Homes but Delivers Fewer Affordable Homes

June 7, 2026 // 0 Comments

New MHCLG data show Kent’s 12 district councils recorded 7,724 net additional homes in 2024/25, up almost 12% in a year when England’s total fell. But the county’s [...]

Folkestone & Hythe District Council Long-Term Sickness Absence Surges

June 5, 2026 // 0 Comments

Long-term sickness absence rose by two-thirds at Folkestone & Hythe District Council, with mental health-related conditions accounting for 42% of all working time lost. [...]

Tony Vaughan KC Backs Bid To Block EHRC Single-Sex Spaces Code

June 4, 2026 // 0 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe’s MP has backed a Commons motion to reject the EHRC’s updated equality-law guidance. The issue is sensitive, practical and local — so [...]

Folkestone & Hythe Local Plan Puts District’s Future on Rails

June 4, 2026 // 0 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe District Council has fired the starting gun on a new Local Plan that could shape the district until 2045. No sites have been chosen yet. No final [...]

Kent IVF Cuts: “Class Warfare” Row After Reform Councillor Says Poor People Shouldn’t Have Babies

June 3, 2026 // 1 Comment

NHS Kent and Medway cut funded IVF as births fall and Kent ages. Then a Reform UK councillor said people on low incomes shouldn’t have babies and called IVF a “lifestyle [...]

FHDC Renters’ Rights Policy Wasn’t Ready When Tenants Needed It

June 3, 2026 // 1 Comment

Most private landlords had until midnight at the end of Sunday 31 May to give tenants the official Renters’ Rights information sheet. By Monday morning, FHDC didn’t [...]

FHDC HR Reports Reveal Disciplinary Resignations and Governance Failures

June 2, 2026 // 1 Comment

Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s own HR reviews show a sharp rise in disciplinary cases, complex investigations involving Internal Audit, staff resignations before [...]

Kent and Medway Birth Data Shows Changing Family Needs

June 1, 2026 // 0 Comments

Births across Kent and Medway are falling, but the birth profile is changing. The figures don’t show nationality, ethnicity, immigration status, asylum, religion or when [...]

The Long Read: Kent IVF Cuts Leave Women Facing a Fertility Postcode Lottery

May 31, 2026 // 0 Comments

NHS Kent and Medway has cut funded IVF from two cycles to one, lowered the age rule from under 40 to treatment before a woman’s 38th birthday, and left the public without [...]

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	shepwayvox on BBC Cash and the Iliffe Money…
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