November 2025

Kent County Council Adult Social Care Debt: Nearly £4m Written Off in Five Years as Costs Rise, Arrears Grow and Cases Go to Court

November 30, 2025 // 0 Comments

Kent County Council (KCC) has written off £3,919,551 of adult social care debt over the five financial years from April 2020 to April 2025, according to an FOI disclosure [...]

Mark Quinn: Quinn Estates’ Power, Philanthropy — and the Quinn Investments Accounts Behind Kent’s Biggest Developments

November 28, 2025 // 1 Comment

For most people in east Kent, the name “Mark Quinn” means big housing schemes, glossy CGI images and often fierce planning rows. Less visible is the quiet holding company [...]

Hythe Imperial Hotel, GSE Group and the Healey–Bowles Empire: Inside Kent’s Construction, Property and Truckstop Network. A Shepway Vox Investigation

November 27, 2025 // 0 Comments

When you walk along Hythe seafront, the Hythe Imperial Hotel & Spa looms over the promenade – a refurbished Victorian pile now marketed as a luxury coastal retreat. [...]

Otterpool Park Update: Millions Budgeted While Outline Permission Still Unissued; Homes England Recognises ‘Market Failure’ as 31 Dec 2026 Long-Stop Nears

November 26, 2025 // 3 Comments

By any normal measure, a council that “resolved to grant” outline planning permission, in April 2023, for a new settlement of this scale (8,500 homes) would be sprinting [...]

Folkestone & Hythe Warns Renters’ Rights Act Enforcement Is Underfunded: What the New Rules Mean for Evictions, Landlord Redress, the Property Portal and Illegal Evictions

November 26, 2025 // 1 Comment

Folkestone & Hythe District Council has issued an unusually candid note of caution about the Renters’ Rights Act: the duties are expanding fast, the practical [...]

Kent Council Debt 2024–25: Full Borrowing Breakdown for Kent County, Medway and Every District

November 24, 2025 // 1 Comment

Across Kent and Medway, council debt has not stood still over the past financial year. Between 31 December 2024 (Q3) and 30 September 2025 (Q2), total borrowing by the 14 [...]

From Kent Fields to Cayman Waterfront: The Offshore Life of Pentland Homes Boss James Nettlam Tory

November 24, 2025 // 0 Comments

When residents in Folkestone, Hawkinge or Ashford argue with Pentland Homes over traffic, contamination or yet another field turning into “executive homes”, the man who [...]

Part 3:Roger De Haan Charitable Trust: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Folkestone’s Million-Pound Philanthropy – A ShepwayVox Investigation

November 23, 2025 // 0 Comments

The Roger De Haan Charitable Trust (RDHT) – charity no. 276274 – is a family-run grant‐making foundation focused on Folkestone and south-east Kent. Its stated [...]

Part 2: Creative Folkestone’s charity arm accounts (2019–2024): A Shepway Vox Investigation

November 21, 2025 // 1 Comment

Creative Folkestone, the visionary arts charity at the heart of this seaside town’s cultural revival, has ridden a rollercoaster of fortunes over the past five financial [...]

Part 1: Creative Folkestone Company Accounts 2019–2024: A Shepway Vox Investigation

November 20, 2025 // 0 Comments

The Shepway Vox Team is launching a three-part investigation into the money behind Folkestone’s cultural renaissance. In Parts 1 and 2 we will examine the finances of [...]

Why Folkestone & Hythe Backed the East Kent Unitary ‘Option 3A’ – Democracy, Devolution and the District’s Future Explained

November 20, 2025 // 0 Comments

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything. Oscar Wilde Folkestone & Hythe District Council has formally backed the [...]

Kent County Council Budget Overspend at Half-Time: Reform UK Era Faces Adult Social Care Crisis

November 19, 2025 // 0 Comments

Half-way through the 2025–26 financial year, the scoreboard at County Hall does not make pretty reading. Against a net revenue budget of £1.53 billion, Kent County Council [...]

Creative Folkestone Tenancy Agreement: ‘Creative Connection’ and Gagging Clauses Under UK Renter and Consumer Law

November 19, 2025 // 6 Comments

Creative Folkestone describes itself as “an arts charity with a bold ambition: to make Folkestone a better place to live, work and visit through creativity.” In the [...]

UK Asylum Crackdown: Why the Home Secretary’s ‘Danish Model’ Is Legally Doomed and Practically Unworkable

November 18, 2025 // 2 Comments

The Home Secretary’s new asylum plan is not a system of protection. It is, in effect, a long-term holding pen – built on a Danish model that is both morally corrosive and [...]

Otterpool Park Exposed: How Folkestone & Hythe’s 10,000-Home ‘Garden Town’ Is Spending Millions Without Planning Permission

November 18, 2025 // 3 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe District Council is gearing up for yet another intense round of work on Otterpool Park – still without an actual planning permission in place, more [...]

Folkestone & Hythe Council Housing: Strong Budget, Slow New Homes

November 18, 2025 // 0 Comments

By any normal measure, Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s Housing Revenue Account (HRA) is being run cautiously. At the halfway point of 2025/26, the latest [...]

Folkestone & Hythe District Council Budget Half-Time Score: Council Tax, Reserves and Capital Borrowing Explained

November 17, 2025 // 0 Comments

Six months after councillors approved this year’s budget on 26 February 2025, new second-quarter (Q2) monitoring reports show a familiar picture at Folkestone & Hythe [...]

Belgian Developer Hendrik Danneels: Criminal Tax-Fraud and Money-Laundering Case Shadowing Mylecke NV and the Insolvent Leas Pavilion Development in Folkestone

November 14, 2025 // 0 Comments

For years, Belgian property developer Hendrik Danneels (pictured) has preferred to operate in the shadows. Belgian business press portrays him as a low-profile coastal [...]

Leas Pavilion Developer Insolvency: How Offshore Owner Mylecke NV Left Folkestone with Eyesore Towers and Broken Promises

November 14, 2025 // 2 Comments

For 18 months the two stark concrete towers on Folkestone’s Leas have stood frozen – an unfinished gateway to a luxury apartment scheme that never arrived. In early [...]

Exposed: Cllr David Wimble’s Misleading Kent SEND Transport Claims — Fact-Checked and Debunked

November 12, 2025 // 0 Comments

In a recent Looker “rant” Kent County Councillor David Wimble blames home-to-school transport (HTST) and “self-diagnosing” parents for council tax hikes, [...]

Exposed: Cllr David Wimble’s False Asylum Law Claims — Debunked by UK Courts, Statute and Parliament

November 12, 2025 // 5 Comments

Updated 12:10 12/11/25 Cllr David Wimble, Kent County Council’s Cabinet Member for Environment, used a local platform to deliver a sweeping denunciation of small-boat [...]

One Council or Five? Kent & Medway’s Local Government Overhaul

November 12, 2025 // 0 Comments

Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) is a plan to overhaul how councils are structured and run in Kent and Medway. In plain terms, it would replace the current two-tier [...]

Kent NHS: Staff Intimidation Linked to St George’s Flags and Far-Right Protests Risks Delaying Home Care

November 11, 2025 // 2 Comments

Health visitors and community nurses report intimidation amid a surge of flags and far-right protests. KCHFT brings in “yellow/red card” sanctions as leaders warn fear [...]

Folkestone & Hythe DC’s parking charges: five years of steep rises, a seafront summer premium, and 2026/27 proposals under scrutiny

November 11, 2025 // 2 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe’s District Council’s discretionary parking charges have been ratcheted up across four agreed budgets (2022/23–2025/26) and one set of [...]

Folkestone & Hythe discretionary fees up; bereavement leads, court costs frozen

November 10, 2025 // 0 Comments

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” — Oscar Wilde Over five budgets from 2022/23 to the proposed 2026/27 schedule, [...]

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