Folkestone & Hythe District Council grant Planning Permission for Princes Parade

Yesterday evening we received the follow news from the Treasurer and Membership Secretary of the Save Princes Parade Group.

“Regrettably I have to inform you that today (18th July 2019)  Folkestone and Hythe District Council have issued the Planning Decision notice for development on Princes Parade.

The status up until now was the site had received a ‘resolution to grant’. The site now has detailed planning permission for the leisure centre and outline planning permission for 150 homes.

The resolution to grant was planning permission subject to the officers being able to remove the objection from the Environment Agency regarding the surface water drainage arrangements.

The recent addendum to the Environment Statement describing the revised plan to deal with the surface water drainage has now been agreed by the planning officer. This was despite Hythe Town Council raising their objections to it at the recent Plans and Works committee. And this flew in the face of the successful motion to abandon the Princes Parade development proposal passed by FHDC.

Democracy seems to have been the principle casualty.

Our only alternative now is to go for Judicial Review.

We are not able to challenge the decision. but we are able to challenge the process that was followed to reach the decision and that is what we are going to do!

We have had a solicitor on standby for when the decision notice was published and this afternoon I instructed them to start Judicial Review proceedings. Our instructions thus far is for our legal team to engage with FHDC in the Pre-Action Protocol. Once we obtain advise on the Pre-Action Protocol engagement we will then make the final decision to go to court. I will, of course, keep you informed at all stages.

If you have pledged money towards the legal costs I will be contacting you individually with details of how to donate the money.  If you have not already pledged towards the legal costs and you wish to do so please email me.” membership@saveprincesparade.org

Finally, we hope the Save Princes Parade Campaign will include in their grounds the fact the contract with Faithful and Gould started two months before it was awarded, which of course is not possible. This evidence is in the public domain and can be found on the Kent Business Portal, and evidence the council have paid Faithful and Gould £195,354.60 is available on the Council’s payment to suppliers webpage.

Starting a contract before it is awarded is forbidden under the OJEU rules and Council procurement rules. As such the process cannot have been followed as per the law.

We have sent an email to the membership team making them aware of this issue.

The Shepwayvox Team

The Velvet Voices of Dissent