ShepwayVox Dissent is not a Crime

The Long Read: Kent County Council’s PFI School Deals Still Cost Millions

April 19, 2026 // 0 Comments

The Government says PFI is over. Parliament has spent years tearing strips off it. The Treasury itself admitted the model became “tarnished by its waste, inflexibility and [...]

Folkestone & Hythe District Council Pay Gap Widens Between Top Officers and Lowest-Paid Staff

April 17, 2026 // 0 Comments

There is a neat trick in local authority pay stories. Look only at percentages and the whole thing can start to seem almost modest. Look at the pounds, though, and the [...]

Exclusive: How Otterpool Park’s Places for People Deal Ended in a Claim

April 16, 2026 // 0 Comments

David Monk’s Otterpool strategy was built on a simple commercial idea: service the land, parcel it up and sell it on. By 2023, Places for People had emerged in public as [...]

KCC Children’s Social Work Vacancy Rate Falls but Caseloads Stay Above Target

April 16, 2026 // 0 Comments

Kent County Council’s children’s social work workforce looks healthier on paper than it did two years ago. Vacancies are down. Turnover is down. Permanent staffing has [...]

Otterpool Park Minutes Reveal Places for People Claim

April 15, 2026 // 1 Comment

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?

April 15, 2026 // 0 Comments

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

April 14, 2026 // 1 Comment

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

April 14, 2026 // 1 Comment

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

April 14, 2026 // 2 Comments

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

April 14, 2026 // 0 Comments

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

April 13, 2026 // 0 Comments

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

April 13, 2026 // 2 Comments

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

April 12, 2026 // 0 Comments

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

April 10, 2026 // 2 Comments

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.

April 10, 2026 // 7 Comments

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

April 10, 2026 // 0 Comments

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

April 9, 2026 // 0 Comments

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

April 8, 2026 // 0 Comments

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

April 7, 2026 // 0 Comments

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

April 6, 2026 // 0 Comments

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

April 4, 2026 // 2 Comments

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

April 3, 2026 // 3 Comments

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

April 2, 2026 // 1 Comment

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

April 2, 2026 // 1 Comment

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

April 1, 2026 // 0 Comments

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, [...]

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	Martin on Planning Reform Plans Shift Mo…