Otterpool Park Minutes Reveal Places for People Claim
For years, Otterpool Park LLP’s public minutes were written in that familiar regeneration dialect: lots of “delivery”, “collaboration” and “transition”, not [...]
Kent Councils Gender Pay Gap League Table: Which Employers Favour Men, Women or Neither?
Kent’s council gender pay gap story is no longer a simple tale of men doing better everywhere. In some authorities the median gap still clearly favours men. In some it is [...]
Exclusive: Places for People Silent Over Otterpool Park Contract Dispute
Exclusive Places for People pulled out of plans to become an Otterpool Park joint venture partner in autumn 2024. Now, after being asked whether it is taking or preparing [...]
Planning Reform Plans Shift Most Planning Decisions From Councillors to Officers
If the government’s planning committee reforms go through, the biggest change will not simply be that fewer applications reach committee. It will be that a new two-person [...]
Kent Police Use of Force and Race Questions Persist Despite HMICFRS Praise
Kent Police has got better at call handling, improved outcomes for victims and won strong praise for how it supports its workforce. But the latest HMICFRS inspection says the [...]
East Kent Ambulance Delays Ease but NHS Targets Are Still Missed
For years, ambulance performance in East Kent was one of those local scandals that seemed to need no introduction: queues outside hospitals, handover delays, and response [...]
Folkestone Invicta Promotion Stats: Goals, Points and the Players Behind the Title
Folkestone Invicta are up, and the lazy version of the story would stop there: champions, promotion, party, end of article. But the numbers underneath this season are better [...]
Folkestone & Hythe Rents Rise as Home Ownership Moves Further Out of Reach
Private rents in Folkestone & Hythe remain lower than the South East average in cash terms. But they are rising faster locally, and the gap between earnings and house [...]
Folkestone & Hythe Has Weekly Food Waste Collections. The Real Problem Is Getting Residents to Use Them
The service is here. The caddies are here. The council says the food waste is turned into renewable energy. The real local question is whether enough people are actually [...]
Otterpool Park Update: Homes England’s Westenhanger Land Move and the Pack Field Silence
Updated: 06:50 11/04/26 At Lympne Parish Council Annual Meeting on 8 April, FHDC leader Jim Martin said Homes England is in the process of acquiring land within walking [...]
Exclusive: David Wimble’s Two Unsatisfied CCJs and the Question Reform UK Cannot Dodge.
Exclusive The Reform UK politician who sits at the top table in Kent politics now has two unsatisfied County Court judgments showing at his Littlestone address. One might be [...]
Folkestone & Hythe Ward Budgets: Where the Money Went
Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s ward budget scheme ought to be one of the easiest things in local government to follow. Thirty councillors. Up to £3,000 each. Up [...]
Folkestone Triennial: The Hard Questions Behind Creative Folkestone’s Impact Report
Back in 2007, as Folkestone’s culture-led reinvention was being set out, Sir Roger De Haan gave a revealing account of himself. In video footage from that period, he [...]
Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s New Finance System Raises Old Questions
Cllr Tim Prater says Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s new finance system should improve things. He may be right. But the awkward truth is that this is not really a [...]
Kent Meningitis Outbreak: Exercise Pegasus Paper Mentioned Meningitis Before Canterbury Cluster
In January, Kent’s public health committee was given a routine-looking update on Exercise Pegasus, a national pandemic-preparedness exercise. Buried in the paper was a line [...]
Southern Water Sewage: Why Some Kent Councils Investigate and Others Look Away
Two Kent councils are now investigating possible statutory nuisance complaints over alleged untreated sewage discharges by Southern Water. Others are hesitating, dragging [...]
New Romney and Its Perfect Cousins
There are few things more revealing in local government than a row about street sweeping. Not because it is glamorous. Quite the opposite. When residents start arguing over [...]
David Wimble and the long trail of false claims and official corrections
For years, David Wimble (pictured) has mixed life as a councillor with life as a publisher. That is not the problem. The problem is what happens when the man with the [...]
Folkestone & Hythe Council Backs East Stour and Romney Marsh Sewage Testing
There are some council debates that arrive gift-wrapped for local government purists: knotty, procedural, full of worthy intent and decorated with enough amendments to make [...]
East Kent Hospitals Recovery Programme: Fire Safety, Maternity and Complaint Failures Exposed
When East Kent Hospitals’ board meets later today, Thursday 2 April, it will do so with the trust now officially placed in the government’s new NHS intensive recovery [...]
Folkestone Beach Book Swap Draws 2,073 People and Sets World Record
More than 2,000 people gathered at Sunny Sands for what organisers say was a world-record book swap, turning Folkestone’s shoreline into a joyful celebration of stories, [...]
Chris Hespe, Reform’s DOLGE and the KCC Debt Claim That Does Not Add Up
Chris Hespe’s parish updates offer an unintentionally marvellous guide to life inside Reform-run County Hall: surplus property that supposedly has to be sold by law, [...]
Otterpool Park Update: Phase 1B Emerges as Likely Start for Early Homes
The latest Homes England announcement is dressed in the usual language of collaboration, momentum and delivery. But the most important Otterpool development is not in the [...]
KCC SEND Crisis: Private EHCP School Placements and Costs Soar
Kent County Council is paying for far more children with EHCPs to be placed in independent special schools than it was a few years ago, and the bill is now rising so fast [...]
Kent solar panel data raises questions over MP Tony Vaughan’s rooftop energy plan
New Department for Energy Security and Net Zero figures show rooftop solar is already well established across Kent. But while Tony Vaughan KC MP is plainly right that more [...]