Folkestone Harbour: Deprivation Endures Despite Regeneration

Folkestone’s waterfront has been remade with panache: the derelict Harbour Arm became a promenade of bars and food stalls; a boardwalk curls along the beach; the first crescent of luxury flats glints white against the Channel. Sir Roger De Haan’s name sits behind much of it. He bought the harbour in 2004, has directed the seafront company since, and told The Guardian he has “spent £100m on it already,” from beach-raising to Harbour Arm refurbishments. Yet a blunt question hangs over the town’s most talked-about ward: has any of this shifted deprivation for the residents of Folkestone Harbour? The latest three rounds of the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) say no—and in places, things have got worse.

We analysed every Lower-layer Super Output Area (LSOA)—small statistical neighbourhoods of roughly 1,500–3,000 people used in official statistics—inside the Folkestone Harbour ward boundary and tracked their national IMD ranks in 2015, 2019 and 2025. The LSOA at the heart of the ward—Folkestone & Hythe 014A—was already among England’s most deprived places a decade ago and has moved further towards rank 1 over time (2015 rank 572, 2019 614, 2025 306; 1 is worst). A neighbouring LSOA (003D) has slipped a whole decile since 2015 (from the middle of the national distribution into a poorer band). A third (003B) is broadly flat across the decade, while a fourth (004E) improves but remains in the most deprived 20%. In short, despite the waterfront’s makeover, the ward’s deprivation has not improved on the government’s headline measure, and in its hardest-hit streets it has deteriorated.

This unmoving picture matters because IMD blends the things residents actually feel—income, work, health, education and skills, crime, housing access and the lived environment—rather than the visual charm of a promenade. New restaurants can lift weekend footfall; they do not automatically raise incomes, cut worklessness or repair health outcomes in the streets behind the arches. Without targeted social investment—skills, early years, primary care and mental health, family support, affordable homes—the ranking does not budge.

The story of who owns and steers the waterfront is straightforward. Folkestone Harbour Company Ltd lists Sir Roger Michael De Haan (pictured) as the person with significant control, holding 75%+ of shares, according to Companies House. De Haan’s group structure also includes Folkestone Harbour Holdings and Folkestone Harbour (GP) Ltd, the latter referenced repeatedly across the project’s websites and filings. ShepwayVox has traced the ownership story back to 2004, when De Haan acquired the harbour for £11m. Those facts are not in dispute; the question is what the regeneration he has bankrolled is doing for the ward’s deprivation.

Public money helped unlock the scheme. In 2016 the South East Local Enterprise Partnership approved a £5.1m Local Growth Fund grant for enabling works—beach nourishment, site-raising for flood defence, and a link from town to the Harbour Arm. The council’s own “major projects” page records outline consent for up to 1,000 homes and up to 10,000 m² of commercial space on the seafront, later varied under a Section 73 permission that governs what is now being built. Those planning decisions culminated this summer when councillors approved a revised reserved-matters package—410 homes and 54 commercial units—after an earlier refusal in January.

It would be unfair—and wrong—to ignore the scale of De Haan’s wider philanthropy. Creative Folkestone (formerly the Creative Foundation) has turned empty properties into studios and venues, staged the Folkestone Triennial and anchored a creative quarter. The F51 multi-storey skatepark opened with capital funding from the Roger De Haan Charitable Trust and is operated by local sports charity The Sports Trust; national press praised it as a gift to the town, not a call on the taxpayer. These interventions have made Folkestone livelier and more interesting. They are real. But the IMD trend for Folkestone Harbour ward shows no measurable uplift for the people who live there.

Supporters of the seafront scheme argue that benefits will arrive in time, as later phases complete and new residents spend locally. The developer has pointed to jobs and gross value added when pressing its case; KentOnline reported the council’s eventual approval in June after revisions to address design and parking concerns. But regeneration judged by IMD movement in this ward—over a full decade that spans two complete IMD cycles and the latest 2025 release—remains unproven. The poorest LSOA has slid further towards the bottom; another has dropped a decile; none has climbed out decisively.

Financial filings underscore the point that glossy images do not guarantee broad-based gains. Folkestone Harbour Company Ltd is a sizeable property/harbour operation, but Companies House filings reveal the sort of balance sheets where headline profit can hinge on non-cash adjustments, while trading income from port dues, parking and lettings remains modest in scale for a scheme claimed to transform the town. Those results may suit an owner-developer’s long game; they do not suggest a surge of wealth flowing into the ward’s households.

Nor can we wish away the national context. Between 2015 and July 2024 the government pursued austerity that pared back local authority capacity, housing budgets, public health and social care—exactly the levers that pull deprivation indices. In that climate, a privately led waterfront revival, however well meant, could not substitute for systemic investment where need is deepest. De Haan’s generosity—schools, sports, culture—sits alongside a data series that refuses to move.

Since the Harbour Arm opened in 2015—and since the first of the deprivation tables published that same year—the evidence points one way: regeneration on its own has not lifted people out of deprivation in Folkestone Harbour ward. Across the three IMD releases (2015, 2019 and 2025), the ward’s core neighbourhoods remain stuck in the bottom bands, with the hardest-hit LSOA sliding closer to rank 1 despite the waterfront’s makeover. The buildings changed; the rankings did not.

The fairest conclusion is also the hardest: Folkestone Harbour looks transformed; Folkestone Harbour ward does not. Sir Roger De Haan has spent money, taken risk and backed civic assets many towns would envy. The council and LEP underwrote enabling works. Architects delivered spectacle. Yet the IMD record shows no improvement for residents, and a clear worsening in the streets that were already most deprived. If the next decade is to read differently, Folkestone needs the slow, unglamorous work the IMD rewards: higher incomes, secure jobs within reach, skills built from early years, accessible primary and mental health care, and genuinely affordable homes in the ward itself. Let the promenade stay busy. What must change now is life behind it.

The Shepway Vox Team

Dissent is NOT a Crime