Section 106 Disaster in Folkestone: £1.7 Million Missing, No Affordable Homes Delivered

Fourteen affordable homes promised. £1.716 million pledged in Section 106 contributions. Not a brick laid, not a pound received.

Instead, Stoneleigh House and its adjoining land on Tram Road, Folkestone, have become entangled in a slow-moving financial catastrophe — the result of corporate collapse, regulatory silence, and vanishing accountability. Three administrator reports dated —  8 March 2024, 6 September 2024, and 6 March 2025 — reveal the full scale of the insolvency of Sunningdale House Developments Ltd, the company once controlled by David Richard Pownceby.

The picture they paint is one of delay, mismanagement, and deepening debt — with taxpayers, local residents, and small creditors left in the cold.

S106 Agreement: A Legal Obligation Ignored

In planning permission granted in 2017, Folkestone & Hythe District Council allowed the developer to avoid building 14 affordable homes at Tram Road. Instead, the company agreed to pay £1.716 million in cash contributions, split into four instalments.

The first should have been triggered when 50% of the units at Sandgate Pavilions Block B were occupied. By 2021, multiple blocks were well beyond that threshold. But according to the Council’s own disclosures — and confirmed by The Shepway Vox Team — no payment had been received by the time the company entered administration in August 2023.

The March 2024 administrator report acknowledges this problem directly:

“We are in discussions with the local authority to clarify the terms of a Section 106 agreement and affordable housing provision, which will have significant impact on the value of the site… until clarity is established… we are not proposing to market and sell the property.”
(Administrator’s Progress Report, 14 March 2024)

In the meantime, the promised homes were never built, and the money never materialised.

Who Was Sunningdale House Developments Ltd?

The company was founded in 2014 and directed for much of its trading life by David Richard Pownceby, (pictured) a local developer with a growing footprint across Kent and Thanet. He resigned from the board on 7 August 2023, two days before the administration took effect.

The company had operated from Invicta Way, Manston Park, Ramsgate, and was deeply interwoven with other Pownceby-linked firms — including Murston Construction Ltd, Sunningdale Investments Ltd, and Development House Ltd — many of which are now in financial distress or formal insolvency themselves.

Administrator Appointed: Legal Challenges and Delays

The administration began on 9 August 2023, initiated by West One Loan Ltd, the holder of a floating charge. However, the appointment was legally contested by Sunningdale Investments Ltd, the company’s largest shareholder and creditor.

The dispute delayed progress by almost two months, until a court ruling on 6 October 2023 confirmed the appointment of CG&Co (Edward Avery-Gee and Daniel Richardson) as administrators, with Jeremy Woodside of Quantuma Advisory Ltd later added by consent of the parties.

Progress Reports: A Year of Inaction and Escalating Costs

Across three filings to Companies House, administrators detail a slow-motion collapse:

• Tram Road, the company’s only remaining asset, could not be marketed until issues with the Council over the Section 106 agreement and affordable housing covenant were clarified.

• A loan to Murston Construction Ltd, originally valued at £625,000, was settled for £326,800 in early 2024.

• Efforts to recover funds from intercompany debts were blocked by lack of access to company records. Legal action was later required to compel cooperation.

• Administrator and legal fees have exceeded £250,000.

• No Section 106 funds were recovered. No affordable homes were delivered.

Council Oversight Under Fire

The Council’s inaction — failure to issue invoices, take enforcement action, or place charges on the land — now looks damning.

As The Shepway Vox Team reported in August 2023:

“They didn’t enforce the affordable housing requirement. They didn’t collect the money. Now the company’s bust. Who pays? We do.”

Despite a change in political leadership — with the Green Party now controlling Folkestone & Hythe District Council — no public explanation has been offered for how obligations were allowed to lapse, or whether the Council is actively pursuing recovery.

And serious questions remain unanswered:

• Why did Cllr Jim Martin, the current Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Planning – pictured, fail to push for the collection of the £1.716 million?

• Why did the Council’s Planning Department take no enforcement action, even when payment trigger points were passed in 2021?

• Why was no legal charge placed on the Tram Road site, to secure the public’s interest?

Meanwhile, Cllr Nicola Keen, Labour Cllr for Harbour Ward – pictured, where Stonelieigh House is situated on Tram Road, is reportedly apoplectic about the Council’s apparent failure to secure the £1.716 million in Section 106 contributions.

As we understand she is prepared to raise the matter in full Council on the 23 July. Residents report she has described the affair as a “betrayal of public trust and local need.”

Unless accountability follows, residents of Harbour Ward warn, this case could set a dangerous precedent — not just for Folkestone, but for planning enforcement across the district.

A Symbol of Broken Planning

Folkestone’s Tram Road site — a stone’s throw from the Harbour Arm and Creative Quarter — was supposed to offer affordable housing for local residents.

Instead, it offers a grim warning: of developer promises gone unmet, legal agreements unenforced, and Folkestone & Hythe District Council planning department asleep at the wheel.

If action isn’t taken soon, it won’t just be £1.716 million lost to history — it will be the public’s faith in planning, accountability, and justice.

We would be interested in hearing about your experiences of Fokestone & Hythe District Council. Email: TheShepwayVoxTeam@proton.me in confidence.

The Shepway Vox Team

Journalism for the People NOT the Powerful