Folkestone & Hythe District Council Has Lost 1,200 Council Homes Since 2002

Over the past 22 years, Folkestone & Hythe District Council has lost 1,200 council homes. That figure alone should raise concern. But when we examine the underlying reasons — chronic underbuilding, systematic sell-offs, growing vacancy, and missing accountability — the situation becomes far more urgent.

This investigation uses verified council-reported data from April 1978 to March 2024. It shows a housing system in long-term decline, with little transparency, even less rebuilding, and a dangerous indifference to the erosion of public housing stock. These are not projections. These are the council’s own numbers — and they demand attention.

According to official council records (column a2ia), council-owned homes in Folkestone & Hythe:

• Fell from 5,178 in 2002
• To 4,358 by 2010
• And further down to 3,979 by March 2024

This represents a 21% drop over 21 years. That is 1,199 homes no longer available to house local people — homes that have not been visibly replaced. Despite small recent purchases at Risborough Barracks, Sutherland Park and Shepway Close these do not offset the consistent annual losses of stock.

The Right to Buy (RTB) policy was introduced nationally in 1980 by Margaret Thatcher’s government, allowing long-term council tenants to buy their homes at deep discounts. It aimed to foster a “property-owning democracy” — but in Folkestone & Hythe, it has become a steady mechanism for removing affordable homes from public ownership.

Council records and verified sales data reveal the true scale of the impact:

• A total of 210 council homes have been sold locally through RTB since the early 1980s.
• The council received £18.39 million from these sales.
• But tenants were granted £14.34 million in cumulative discounts, meaning 44% of market value was written off ,as the percentage calculation is the discount divided by the market value.

Sales peaked in the 1980s and 1990s — 154 homes sold in 1983, 132 in 1991 — but continued into the 2000s and even the 2020s. As recently as 2022, council homes in Folkestone were still being sold for as little as £66,000, with equivalent or higher discounts applied.

While national rules around RTB changed over time — including discount caps and reinvestment restrictions — the local trend remained constant: homes go out, and almost nothing comes back in.

Today, the council’s housing stock has dropped from 5,178 in 2002 to 3,979 by March 2024, a 21% reduction. There is no evidence in the data of a serious replacement programme. Homes lost to RTB are gone — often resurfacing in the private rental market at far higher prices, no longer serving the people they were originally built for.

Column e1a shows a worrying number of vacant homes:

• 439 in 2006
• 416 in 2011
• 300+ still empty by 2021

These homes were not between tenants — many were long-term voids. This occurred even as over 3,000 people were registered on the district’s housing waiting list. These numbers highlight a deep disconnect between housing supply and council management.

Additional data obtained via Freedom of Information request covering January to December 2021 reveals that each month, an average of 35 to 45 council-owned homes sat vacant. These properties were unoccupied continuously over long stretches of the year.

This is not just inefficiency. It suggests a failure of resource management and political will. In a district where only 88 council homes were let in all of 2023/24, maintaining dozens of empty properties per month represents a structural breakdown. It leaves families in need waiting longer and depletes the utility of the shrinking housing stock.

The decline in lettings of council-owned homes is one of the clearest signs that the housing system in Folkestone & Hythe is faltering. Data from column d10a shows a dramatic fall:

• 369 lettings in 2004
• 226 in 2010
• 103 in 2014
• Just 88 in 2023/24

This represents a 76% reduction in new tenancies over two decades. Lettings are not slowing down because the need for housing has decreased — quite the opposite. They have declined because the pool of available homes has withered. With fewer council homes remaining, fewer become vacant each year, and fewer are turned around and let to those on the waiting list.

The 2017 Housing Allocations Policy – amended Feb 2024, confirmed that approximately 3,000 households were registered on the housing waiting list. By 31st January 2023, that number stood at 1,639 households, still a significant backlog compared to the council’s dwindling letting figures. And at the 04/04/2025, there were 1,157 households (including singles, couples, and families) still on the Council’s Housing Register, demonstrating sustained pressure on limited supply.

In 2023/24, only 88 council lettings occurred. This means the odds of being housed in any given year are vanishingly small, particularly for those without high-priority status. Considering properties let between 1 Apr 2024 & 1 Apr 2025, the average waiting time was 87 weeks, underscoring how prolonged the wait has become for most households in need.

Additionally, the council’s own housing allocation policy makes clear that lettings are prioritised based on urgency and local connection. But if lettings are limited to fewer than 100 a year, this policy functions more as a filter for scarcity than a system of support.

This steep decline in available lettings is the product of intersecting failures: stock sold, stock demolished, stock left vacant, and new homes not being built. Without dramatic change, this is a pipeline running dry.

The steady erosion of council housing in Folkestone & Hythe hasn’t just come from sales under Right to Buy or homes left vacant — a significant portion has simply been bulldozed.

Data from column a4a tracks council home demolitions:

• 45 homes demolished in 2006
• 33 in 2012
• 32 in 2017

These are just the recorded peaks. Even in years with lower activity, demolitions continued in the background, chipping away at the available stock. And yet, across the entire dataset, there is no corresponding evidence of new council homes being built to replace them.

While some homes are undoubtedly removed for good reason — structural issues, health hazards, or redevelopment — the absence of any regeneration programme that restores or exceeds the number lost represents a failure of policy. Every demolished unit is a permanent reduction in capacity unless matched by a new build.

Worse still, some of these demolitions are linked to controversial estate clearance schemes, where viable buildings are cleared for private development or unaffordable replacements. The redevelopment of parts of the East Kent Housing estate model, for instance, removed ageing but usable council properties in favour of mixed-tenure, market-led schemes.

Without a strategy to replace what has been torn down, demolition becomes less about renewal and more about erasure. It leaves fewer options for future tenants and undermines the long-term sustainability of council housing in the district.

Affordable Rent was introduced by the government in 2011 as a model for delivering new social housing. It allows councils and housing associations to let properties at up to 80% of market rent, supposedly making them more viable to build and maintain. However, in Folkestone & Hythe, the council’s own data shows that this tenure type is almost completely absent from its portfolio.

Column a2iab in the dataset, which tracks the number of affordable rent homes owned by the council, is either marked zero or suppressed in nearly every year. This strongly indicates that Folkestone & Hythe District Council has neither built nor acquired any significant number of affordable rent properties since the tenure was introduced.

This is especially striking given national trends. Across England, councils and housing associations have increasingly used the affordable rent model to replace traditional social rent properties. In some boroughs, affordable rent now makes up more than half of new lettings. But in Folkestone & Hythe, there is no recorded growth in this category, despite ongoing housing demand and acknowledged shortages.

Moreover, the lack of affordable rent properties means the council has missed a key opportunity to grow its housing stock using government grant funding, which is often tied to the delivery of homes in this tenure. This has left the district even more reliant on the private rented sector and housing associations to meet local need.

In the rare instances where the council has acquired properties in recent years — such as 44 homes at Risborough Barracks or 26 at Sutherland Park — these have not been categorised as affordable rent within the published datasets. This raises further questions about how such homes are classified, managed, and priced.

In summary, affordable rent, which could have been a partial answer to the erosion of social housing in the district, has barely registered in Folkestone & Hythe’s records. It remains a missing layer in the council’s already fragile housing strategy.

Key categories of data are either suppressed or absent:

• No entries for new council home completions
• No record of net additional dwellings
• Suppression of recent RTB figures (marked [z])

This lack of transparency makes public scrutiny difficult. It also raises questions about whether the council is choosing to track and publish the figures that matter most.

Between 2002 and March 2024, the council’s social housing stock fell by 1,199 homes. Lettings dropped 76%. Hundreds of properties sat empty. At least 210 homes were sold under Right to Buy — with nearly £14.3 million in discounts given. Very little was built or bought in return.

Unless Folkestone & Hythe District Council changes course — by committing to a serious programme of housebuilding, buying back stock, and restoring transparency — the slow erosion of the housing safety net will continue.

This is not just about data. It is about people, homes, and the future of affordable living in our district.

We would be interested in hearing about your experiences of Housing, Private Rented or Social Housing in the Fokestone & Hythe District Council. Email: TheShepwayVoxTeam@proton.me in confidence.

The Shepway Vox Team

Dissent is NOT a Crime