Folkestone Sports Centre: Cabinet Approves £2.4m Reopening Grant Ahead of Full Council Vote

Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s Cabinet has agreed to include a one-off £2.4 million grant aimed at reopening Folkestone Sports Centre and cutting its future energy bills — with the final decision due at Full Council on 25 February 2026.

The swimming pool at Folkestone Sports Centre has been dark since the site’s abrupt closure in summer 2024. Now, councillors say they have found a route back: fund the essential refurbishment as a capital project, reduce running costs through energy measures, and avoid any repeat of an open-ended annual subsidy.

That was the political promise made during the Cabinet discussion of Item 9, the General Fund Budget and Council Tax Resolution 2026/27, on 11 February.

Cllr Tim Prater told colleagues that the budget “readily” enabled a £2.4 million grant to “see Folkestone Sports Centre reopened” and to “massively reduce its energy costs” so the facility becomes more financially sustainable. His key pledge was aimed at reassuring council-tax payers: once the grant is spent, he said, there would be “no ongoing cost to this council beyond that grant”.

Put simply: the council is proposing to pay for the fix — not to keep paying for the day-to-day operation.

That approach reflects a clear shift from the previous model. Before the closure, the council had been paying an annual grant of £150,000 to support the old operating charity. The new budget paperwork shows that line no longer sits in the base budget for 2026/27, reinforcing the argument that the council intends to replace recurring support with a single, defined injection.

The proposed £2.4m is designed to tackle the parts of the complex most directly linked to swimming provision and to the building’s running costs. The stated aim is to fund works needed to get the pool back into use — alongside upgrades that should reduce energy consumption, including renewable/efficiency measures such as solar panels. The political logic is straightforward: an ageing leisure building can drown in utility bills; if you modernise the “plant” and energy set-up, you give the operator a better chance of breaking even.

Ownership is another central feature of the story. The Sports Trust — a local charity previously known as Shepway Sports Trust — bought the centre last year, with the purchase framed locally as a rescue that kept the site in community hands rather than leaving it to drift towards permanent closure or disposal. The grant proposal therefore involves the council investing substantial public money into a facility it does not own, which is precisely why questions have been raised publicly about safeguards, value for money and the legal framework for public subsidy.

Supporters of the grant argue that the pay-off is public benefit: restoring district-wide access to swimming, lessons and clubs, and easing the pressure on the area’s remaining pool provision. They also argue that a one-time capital intervention is more transparent than a rolling annual cheque — you can tie it to a set of works, a timetable, and enforceable conditions.

Critics, however, are likely to keep pressing two points. First, whether the scope is tight enough to prevent “grant creep” into wider parts of the site. And second, whether the council’s confidence that there will be “no ongoing cost” stands up if the reopened facility later struggles with the basic economics of running a pool — staffing, maintenance and utilities — even after energy upgrades.

For now, Cabinet’s decision is not the finish line. The budget and council tax package is part of the statutory budget-setting process, and Cabinet is recommending the final budget for approval by Full Council on 25 February 2026. That is the meeting where the council will formally decide whether the grant sits in the authority’s agreed financial plan.

In other words: the political intent has been stated, and Cabinet has backed the route. But the binding decision — and the details residents will want to see nailed down — now move to the full council chamber.

The Shepway Vox Team

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