Between Jan 2015 and July 2021, Folkestone & Hythe District Council and it’s company Oportunitas Ltd have purchased seventy three pieces of land and/or property, which has cost the council in excess of £75 million according to Land Registry documents. If one adds in fees and stamp duty on the land & property the cost rises to in excess of £80 million pounds.
All property excluding land owned by FHDC & Oportunitas Ltd purchased between 2015 – July 2021
Much of the land – as opposed to property – purchased by the Council (Jan 2015 – July 2021) does not have a price attached to it on it title deed document, nor does it have a postcode and as such is NOT plotted on the map above.
Below is a spreadsheet of all land and property owned by the Council up to and including 2 July 2021, taken from the land registry database.
Not all the land and property purchased has been at the old Folkestone Racecourse, as evidenced by the map above.
FHDC and Oportunitas Ltd have purchased land and property in:
Lydd
New Romney
St Mary’s Bay
Hythe – (including an unknown piece of land at Princes Parade in 2017)
Newingreen
Stanford
Sellindge
Folkestone – (It does not show FHDC own Ship Street yet)
Hawkinge
Ashford
Dover
None of the properties on the Royal Victoria Hospitalsite are included as they are not finished yet.
Have Folkestone & Hythe District Council become a property developer – investor, either in its own right, or via one of the number of companies it now owns. We’ll leave you to ponder that.
If councillors lose their seat, do they have to resign from the companies that the council owns, or do they continue to take profits that have been financed by other people’s money?
They would have to resign as newly elected councillors could take their place. It would however be worth checking the Company’s Articles of Association as this document would set out how directors are appointed and replaced.
My concern is that if the Council has become a de facto property developer in its desire to generate economic growth and just as importantly to supplement its revenue will it not be compromised when reviewing planning applications for these sites?
Considering the Conservatives receive over £17,000 per day from property developers, the planning process is already deeply compromised. Couple this with the venality of our councillors, there is no chance of the policy being fair.
This is of course a depressing but wonderfully nuanced and (as usual) brilliantly written and researched article/post. I’m sorry I can’t match or live up to it in my comments. I feel the author (s) deserve a decent response. I wanted to say I think similar is true of Canterbury City Council. The property development. The insidious absence of respect for any tenants in surrounding areas, subject to the relentless toxic dust, noise and bone shaking building feet from people’s front door. The throwing up of buildings everywhere you look. You see all this and breathe all this and think, pathetically, I’d like a window fixed, or the gutters cleared out. But mainly you just cling on to the nearest solid object in your “home” and hope your body can take the 8 hour a day demolition.
You hope your car will survive another pothole. The list is endless. I miss councils being councils. I think everybody does. Thanks for never giving up.
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Westenhanger Castle, Kent, 2017
Good on them may they continue to prosper
The councillors and their cronies are the only ones to prosper.
If councillors lose their seat, do they have to resign from the companies that the council owns, or do they continue to take profits that have been financed by other people’s money?
They resign their directorships of Oportunitas.
And I think each Director got £1500 per year.
Councillors (elected members) do not have the facility to take profits from the company.
They would have to resign as newly elected councillors could take their place. It would however be worth checking the Company’s Articles of Association as this document would set out how directors are appointed and replaced.
My concern is that if the Council has become a de facto property developer in its desire to generate economic growth and just as importantly to supplement its revenue will it not be compromised when reviewing planning applications for these sites?
Considering the Conservatives receive over £17,000 per day from property developers, the planning process is already deeply compromised. Couple this with the venality of our councillors, there is no chance of the policy being fair.
This is of course a depressing but wonderfully nuanced and (as usual) brilliantly written and researched article/post. I’m sorry I can’t match or live up to it in my comments. I feel the author (s) deserve a decent response. I wanted to say I think similar is true of Canterbury City Council. The property development. The insidious absence of respect for any tenants in surrounding areas, subject to the relentless toxic dust, noise and bone shaking building feet from people’s front door. The throwing up of buildings everywhere you look. You see all this and breathe all this and think, pathetically, I’d like a window fixed, or the gutters cleared out. But mainly you just cling on to the nearest solid object in your “home” and hope your body can take the 8 hour a day demolition.
You hope your car will survive another pothole. The list is endless. I miss councils being councils. I think everybody does. Thanks for never giving up.