Otterpool Update: Homes England pay £9 million for land at Lympne Airfield.

On the 18th March we brought you the story that Homes England had purchased the land at the former Lympne Airfield. We can now tell you that Homes England have paid £9 million for the land. Below is what they have bought. The map is approximate due to the fact the main title deed did not have any map showing the area of the land.

The actual price stated on the title deed is £7,500,000 plus VAT of £1,500,000, which has gone to Phides Estates based in Jersey a known offshore tax haven. Now what we find so ironic is that our Council and the renowned environmental campaigner David Plumstead (pictured) prevented Phides from building houses on the airfield in 2015. Three years on and our Council along with Homes England are now doing a complete U-turn.

Moving on, the land was sold as two plots as you can see from the two tittle deeds

K712970    K704464

Now as we said on the 6th May  Dr Susan Priest, the Head of Paid Services at Folkestone & Hythe District Council was aware of the acquisition of the land by Homes England at Lympne Airfield according to an FoI Request, as early as the 6th December, 2017. How much more duplicity will we see with regard to Otterpool Park?

Slowly the land for Otterpool Park is being assembled what with the threat of compulsory purchase orders on the land owned by Michael Owen, the Dairy farmer at Lympne, the Homes England land, the land owned by our Council and the land owned by the Reuben Brothers offshore company, Cozumel Estates Ltd (BVI)

Also back in April (19th) we informed you about the 40% loss of Green space (4th paragraph)  and what we find so odd is that Folkestone & Hythe Express ran an exclusive just this week (23rd May), even when this information had been in the public domain for a whole five weeks. We do ask how that can make their story an “exclusive”, perhaps they don’t know how to use google.

Moving on we know that £14.2 million pounds of taxpayers money has now been spent on acquiring land within the Otterpool Park site. £5.2 million by FHDC and £9 million by Homes England. Have we and will we receive value for money?

Do local people truly want the Otterpool Park site to become a long term construction site? Or do we want it to remain as land which gives us milk, hay, silage and crops to feed us all?

We’ll leave you to decide that.

The Shepwayvox Team  – Dissent is NOT a Crime.