Time’s Up: 20 Questions to Reclaim Kent’s Future
Kent faces a moment of reckoning. After years of Tory financial mismanagement, spiralling care costs, and broken promises on infrastructure, residents across Folkestone & [...]
April 2025
Truth on Hold: Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s FOI Responses Don’t Add Up
In an age where public trust in institutions is increasingly fragile, accuracy and transparency are more important than ever—especially when it comes to how councils manage [...]
Otterpool Park: “on the cusp of moving into much welcomed delivery”
“Otterpool Park has been in gestation for a very long time, but we are now on the cusp of moving into much welcomed delivery” ~ Dr Susan Priest, 22 April 2025, [...]
Council appoint consultant to market Ship Street site, to find suitable development partner
A flagship plan to transform Folkestone’s long-derelict Ship Street gasworks into new housing is under intense scrutiny amid mounting costs and protracted delays. An [...]
Policy vs Precedent: Is Folkestone & Hythe’s Equality Framework Fit for Purpose
Recently, the Equality Act returned to national headlines after a landmark Supreme Court judgment confirmed—definitively—that “sex” in UK law means biological sex. [...]
Green Hypocrisy: Hythe Tops Charts for Wood Burner Pollution
New analysis from University College London has laid bare a sharp hypocrisy at the heart of Folkestone & Hythe District: Hythe, the political stronghold of the Shepway [...]
Promises, Delays and Silence: Inside the Greatstone Beach Huts Controversy
A regeneration project conceived in 2021 as a flagship investment in Romney Marsh has descended into controversy, delays, and community backlash, as Folkestone & Hythe [...]
Let it Be Remembered: Princes Parade Was Saved by Everyone—Through Resistance, Circumstance and Collective Action
Let it be remembered: Princes Parade was saved not by any one person, but by everyone who cared enough to fight for it. The long campaign to stop the development of Princes [...]
Council to Spend £560,000 on Obsolete System Fix – But Where’s the Oversight?
Folkestone & Hythe District Council is poised to spend more than half a million pounds on a long-overdue replacement for its internal finance and asset management [...]
Celebrate a Local Volunteer — Nominations Open in Folkestone, Hythe & Romney Marsh Until 11 May
Volunteering is one of the quiet forces that sustains life in Britain — and nowhere is that more evident than in Folkestone, Hythe & Romney Marsh. From supporting [...]
“Numbers Have Never Been My Big Thing”: Admits Reform Candidate standing in KCC Election
Kent County Council (KCC), responsible for a staggering £1.5 billion net revenue budget that funds critical services from education to social care, faces intensified [...]
Folkestone & Hythe District Council to Retain Cabinet System Pending Final Ratification
Folkestone & Hythe District Council has received ministerial consent to retain its existing Leader and Cabinet governance structure—reversing a previously agreed plan [...]
Kent County Council Signed Contracts Worth Hundreds of Millions Without Public Checks
This article is currently under review following receipt of a formal response from Kent County Council (KCC). We are in the process of carefully considering the information [...]
Unclaimed and Overlooked: The Human Cost of Early Death and Isolation in Coastal Kent
In a comparative analysis of East Kent’s coastal districts — Canterbury, Dover (1) (2), Folkestone and Thanet— a quiet but vital civic task plays out behind closed [...]
Broken Budgets, Big Promises: Will Kent’s May Candidates Fix the Financial Freefall?
Kent County Council’s finances are collapsing under the weight of rising care costs, crumbling infrastructure, and vanishing reserves. The Budget-Book-2024/25 and February [...]
Where Is the Contract? Scrutiny Intensifies as ‘Folkestone: A Brighter Future’ Regeneration Scheme Set to Begin Without Public Record
With just days to go before diggers are due to break ground on the £20m flagship Folkestone: A Brighter Future regeneration scheme, serious questions are mounting over the [...]
Investigation: 49 FHDC Contracts Worth £28.6m Breached Procurement Rules — Standstill Period Abandoned, Oversight Missing
EXCLUSIVE — A Shepway Vox Team investigation has uncovered that Folkestone & Hythe District Council failed to apply the mandatory 10-day standstill period before [...]