Southern Water, Sewage and Kent’s Water Crisis Reach County Hall
Thousands have lived without love, not one without water. W. H. Auden Cllr Stuart Heaver’s motion on water infrastructure is serious, overdue and mostly right. But Kent [...]
David Wimble’s “Illegal Migration Emergency” Motion Falls Apart on the Facts
On Thursday 19 March, Kent County Council will be asked to declare an “Illegal Migration Emergency in Kent” on a motion proposed by Reform UK’s David Wimble. Read it [...]
Kent Councils’ Environmental Health Powers on Sewage: Who to Contact and What They Can Do
Yesterday, we looked at What Powers Does Kent’s Director of Public Health Have Over Sewage Pollution. Today, in the final part of this public health series, we turn to the [...]
New Beach Holiday Village: Jersey Ownership and US Governance Questions Behind Dymchurch Plan
Folkestone & Hythe District Council has approved planning application 25/2297/FH for New Beach Holiday Village in Dymchurch as a greener, smarter revamp. But behind the [...]
What Powers Does Kent’s Director of Public Health Have Over Sewage Pollution?
Following on from yesterday’s article, Kent E. coli Cases, Sewage and the Public Health Risk, the next question is unavoidable. If sewage pollution is plainly a [...]
Kent E. coli Cases, Sewage and the Public Health Risk
Professor Chris Whitty Chief Medical Officer for England – pictured – warned that sewage in rivers and seas is a public health problem, not merely an [...]
Folkestone Affordable Housing: How 14 Homes Were Lost at Stoneleigh House, Tram Road
An insolvency report, two auction catalogues and one carefully chosen council word tell a bleak story about how Folkestone lost 14 affordable homes and may yet lose the [...]
Folkestone & Hythe GP Surgeries: Patient Experience and Access Scorecards
We have all heard the stock line: general practice is under pressure, staff are working flat out, and patients should be kind. All of that can be true. It can also be true [...]
Folkestone & Hythe Poverty Crisis: Food Parcels, Child Poverty and Fuel Poverty Exposed
Folkestone & Hythe has had years of speeches about regeneration, levelling up, opportunity, renewal, recovery and other fine words normally delivered from behind a [...]
Folkestone & Hythe Council’s Offshore Ownership Blind Spot
Some councils publish policies that look a bit stale. Folkestone & Hythe District Council appears to prefer the full museum experience. Its public anti-money-laundering [...]
Kent and Medway Food Parcel Crisis: Trussell Data Exposes Hunger Across Every Council
If anyone in Kent and Medway still wants to pretend the cost-of-living crisis is basically over, the numbers have brought a shovel and are digging up that fantasy. In the [...]
Folkestone & Hythe Planning Committee Faces Whitehall Power Grab
If you want to understand where power is drifting in local planning, do not just watch the next controversial application land on Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s [...]
Stodmarsh Sewage Crisis: Southern Water, Otterpool Park and East Kent
At Canterbury’s scrutiny committee on 4 March (from1hr 46m 44s onwards), Stodmarsh kept popping up like the blinking red light on a dashboard that everyone hopes belongs to [...]
Councils Cry Poverty — While Quietly Lending Each Other £Millions
We’ve just been handed a neat little window into how modern local government really works. On Tuesday 10 March, Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s Finance and [...]
Hamstreet Sewage Scandal: Why FHDC Failed to Act While Ashford Investigated
Residents raised a serious complaint about suspected foul contamination moving from Hamstreet towards Hythe and the sea. One council replied with site visits, [...]
Southern Water in Kent: Bailiffs, Sewage and Beaches Closed for Swimming.
Fresh parliamentary papers have put an ugly new number on an old public grievance. On 6 March, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee published debt-collection [...]
Reform UK KCC Cabinet Member David Wimble’s Looker Accused of Misleading Readers on Kent County Council Debt
The Shepway Vox Team went back to the documents. What we found was not a careful picture of Kent County Council’s current debt costs, but an old snapshot repackaged as a [...]
Kent Wood-Burner Pollution: 78,380 Estimated Stoves and the Clean Air Powers Councils Aren’t Using
A set of EPC-based estimates, circulated via a British Medical Jornal (BMJ) rapid response and now re-summed and charted, suggests there are roughly 78,380 domestic [...]
Hythe Wood-Burner Pollution: Folkestone & Hythe District Council Challenged Over UCL Data
At Tuesday 3 March’s Overview & Scrutiny Committee, a revealing exchange played out over domestic wood burners and air quality in Hythe. Councillor Paul Thomas recalled [...]
Leas Pavilion Folkestone: Off-Plan Flat Buyers Left Exposed as Receivers Sell the Freehold
Folkestone’s stalled Leas Pavilion scheme has spent long enough as a visual punchline: hoardings, silence, and two concrete cores that look less like “luxury living” [...]
East Kent Sewage Pollution: Southern Water, Five Councils and the Statutory Nuisance Law
We’re The Shepway Vox Team, and over the past few weeks we’ve watched the same pattern play out again and again. Residents complain that sewage-contaminated discharges [...]
Rough Sleeping in Kent: Snapshot Trends and District Hotspots
On one night each autumn, Kent’s 12 district councils go out and record how many people are sleeping rough. Not in hostels. Not in night shelters. Not sofa-surfing. Just [...]
Water UK’s Storm Overflows Plan: A 25-Year Delay in England’s Sewage Scandal
Water UK’s National Storm Overflows Plan for England was launched with the kind of self-congratulation you usually hear just before someone asks you to be patient. It was [...]
Folkestone & Hythe Customer Access Strategy: Digital by Choice or Digital Exclusion?
Folkestone & Hythe District Council has approved a new Customer Access Strategy 2026 -29, built around a simple promise: residents should be able to access council [...]
Kent Fly-Tipping: Incidents Rise While Enforcement Varies Widely Between Councils
Kent is the Garden of England. It is also, judging by the latest Defra flytipping data for 24/25, a place where far too many people treat hedgerows, lay-bys and quiet [...]