Local Government Reorganisation: “The Bin Men Cometh: A Tale of Debt, Dysfunction, and Murder in Folkestone & Hythe District Council”

“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”

Primo Levi

The rain lashed against the windows of Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s headquarters, a brutalist monolith that loomed over the town like a concrete tombstone. Inside, the air was thick with tension, the kind that precedes a storm—or a scandal. Councillor Evelyn Hart, a woman of principle and stubbornness, sat alone in the dimly lit chamber, staring at the pile of papers before her. The words “Local Government Reorganisation” glared back, mocking her. She had refused to play along with the plans to be part of a unitary authority in 2028, and now she was paying the price.

It had started with the bins.

In Folkestone & Hythe, the bins were more than just bins. They were a symbol of civic pride, a battleground for political & public skirmishes, and, increasingly, a source of dark humour. The council’s waste management system was in shambles, a victim of budget cuts and bureaucratic incompetence. Residents had taken to social media to post photos of overflowing bins, accompanied by sardonic captions: “Welcome to Folkestone: Where the bins are as full as our council’s promises.” Cllr Evelyn Hart had tried to fix it, but her efforts were thwarted at every turn by a cabinet system that seemed designed to fail.

Then came the debt. The council was drowning in it, a fact that had been conveniently omitted from the glossy brochures, each one promoting the rush into a unitary authority with neighbouring districts who combined had a total debt of £2.2bn. The brochures further forgot to mention this to the public; and all Cllrs, not in the Cabinet. Nor did the brochure reveal, there was no proposal for council debt to be addressed centrally or written off as part of reorganisation. None. Nor was the criteria in which efficiencies should be identified, to help improve councils’ finances; and make sure that council taxpayers are getting, “the best possible value for their money.” published in the Council’s bright glossy brochure. Cllr Evelyn Hart knew this and was appalled.

She knew in the future, once the council had been pushed into joining a unitary authority, she could forsee the dy she’d ask a question, such as: “How can we explain saving £18 million as value for money, when the service is already on its financial knees? ” And she could hear the response from the Leader of the Council “we’ll change our accounting system, and I have the full support of my Cabinet“.

She had seen the research—national and international—and it made clear, Bigger Is Not Better. The evidence was crystal: larger councils meant less transparency, less accountability, and, ironically, higher costs. But no one wanted to hear it. The unitary authority was going ahead, come hell or high water—or, as it turned out, murder.

The first body was found in a bin.

It was a grim discovery, made by a refuse collector on his morning round. The victim was a young civil servant, a rising star in the council’s finance department. He had been strangled, his body stuffed unceremoniously into a wheelie bin. The press had a field day. “Bin There, Done That,” read one headline. “Council Chaos Turns Deadly,” screamed another. The police launched an investigation, but the trail went cold. The council, eager to avoid further scandal, swept it under the rug—or, more accurately, into a bin.

Cllr Evelyn Hart wasn’t convinced. She had known the victim, a bright and ambitious young man who had been working on a report exposing the financial mismanagement and potential malpractice; which would tarnish reputations, lead to discreet non-disclosure agreements, exit packages and a reference for a job else where, for signing off their own budgets, known locally as “due to the lack of internal controls”. His death was too convenient, too timely. She began to dig, uncovering a web of corruption that stretched from the council chambers to the highest echelons of government. The rush to a unitary authority, she realised, wasn’t just about efficiency—it was a cover-up, a way to bury the evidence of years of financial mismanagement and malpractice ,costing Folkestone & Hythe more than £3.8m.

The second murder was even more brazen.

This time, the victim was none other than the Leader, a staunch and vocal supporter of the move to a unitary authority. He was discovered in his office, slumped over his desk, a single gunshot wound to the head. Clad in his counterfeit Masters Green Jacket (pictured), the scene was as bizarre as it was tragic. The police were quick to rule it a suicide, but Cllr Evelyn Hart wasn’t convinced. She knew better.

The Leader had been on the verge of exposing not one, but two shady land deals—that would have funneled profits into the pockets of well-connected developers and their contractors, while leaving the rest of the district to languish in neglect. His death, Cllr Evelyn Hart believed, was no suicide. It was a calculated hit, a grim warning to anyone who dared to stand in the way of so-called “progress“—or, more accurately, profit.

By now, Cllr Evelyn Hart was a marked woman. Her refusal to support Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s disappearance into a unitary authority, had made her enemies, and her investigation into the murders had made her a target. She was ostracised, stigmatised, and labelled a conspiracy theorist on social media. The press turned on her, painting her as a crank, a relic of a bygone era who couldn’t see the benefits of modernisation. But she didn’t care. She knew the truth, and she was determined to expose it.

The final straw came when the Council was swallowed, by a show of hands in the last meeting, in favour to become part of a unitary authority, despite overwhelming opposition from the public. The new “super council” was a disaster from day one. The promised savings never materialised, and the debt only grew. Services were cut, staff were laid off, and the bins continued to overflow. The people marched, the people rebelled, taking to the streets in protest. The government, faced with the prospect of a full-blown uprising, across Folkestone, Hythe & Romney Marsh, and beyond, was forced to backtrack. Four years after the merger, the old system was restored, and the super council was consigned to the dustbin of history.

But for Cllr Evelyn Hart, it was a hollow victory. The murders were never solved, and the corruption was never fully exposed. She retired from politics, a broken woman, haunted by the knowledge that the system was still broken, still rigged against the people it was supposed to serve. As she walked out from the council chamber, stopping to look back before the switching off the lights, for the last time, she couldn’t help but notice the bins, still overflowing, still mocking her. 

In the end, the bins had the last laugh. 

Epilogue

The report on the effects of local government reorganisation, buried in the archives of Folkestone & Hythe District Council, makes for sobering reading. Drawing on national and international research, it concludes that the creation of larger councils leads to:

• Less transparency: With fewer councils and fewer councillors, scrutiny is reduced, and decision-making becomes more opaque.
• Higher costs: Contrary to the promises of “economies of scale,” larger councils often incur higher administrative costs and are less efficient.
• Lower public trust: The larger the council, the less connected it is to the communities it serves, leading to a decline in public trust and engagement.
• Fewer independent voices: The dominance of the main political parties increases, marginalising independent councillors and smaller parties.

The report’s findings were ignored, of course, but they serve as a cautionary tale for anyone who knows Bigger is not better. In the end, the people of Folkestone and Hythe & Romney Marsh learned the hard way that sometimes, due to the naivety of Cllrs, the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t—especially when the devil comes with a bin lorry.

This blog post, is a delve into a darkly comedic tale of two fictional murders, serving as a satirical lens to explore the very real and imminent issue of local government reorganisation. Set against the backdrop of an impending merger of Folkestone & Hythe DC into a unitary authority—a colossal entity encompassing over half a million people by mid-2028—the story highlights the tensions and turmoil that such centralisation can bring. While the characters and their fates are exaggerated for dramatic and humorous effect, the underlying themes of centralisation, the erosion of local democracy, and the struggles faced by local councils are all too real. This piece is a stark reminder that, in the relentless pursuit of efficiency, we must not lose sight of the importance of local voices and the unique identity of our communities.

The Shepway Vox Team

The Velvet Voices of Voxatiousness