FHDC Budget 2026/27: Paying £63,000 a Year for Empty, Unlettable Otterpool Homes

The council’s budget papers for 2026/27 admit it is now paying ongoing costs on four Otterpool properties sitting empty, “not fit to be let”, while housing pressures elsewhere keep rising.

By The Shepway Vox Team

Most budget rows are either dull, technical, or both. But one line in Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s 2026/27 budget pack reads like a small but telling civic failure — the kind that makes residents blink, then frown, then ask the obvious question: how did we get here?

In the council’s schedule of budget “growth” and “savings” items, officers set out a new, permanent adjustment for “Misc Otterpool Property utilities and business rates/council tax”. The reason is spelled out in plain English: there was no budget set for these costs; the council has four Otterpool properties that are untenanted; they are said to be deemed not fit to be let; and they are incurring a 200% empty property premium. The papers describe the cost as “unavoidable”, with the adjustment set at £63,000 per year (permanent), and refer to a budget realignment over five years totalling about £33,000 linked to the empty property premium.

On one level, £63,000 is not a huge sum in a council budget that runs into tens of millions. On another level, it is exactly the kind of sum that tells you whether a council is in grip of its basic responsibilities. Four empty homes, not lettable, costing taxpayers money every year, while housing pressures elsewhere are rising, is not an “accounting” story. It is a competence story.

Let’s strip the jargon out. “Utilities” are the basic running costs: energy, water, the things that tick on even when no one lives there. “Business rates/council tax” are the property taxes that can still fall due depending on how a building is classified and used. And an “empty property premium” is a penalty charge applied to long-term empty homes — the point of it is to discourage properties being left unused. Here, the council says it is paying a 200% premium. In other words: the public is not just paying the holding costs of empty homes; it is paying a surcharge because the homes are empty.

The phrase that should make every councillor sit up is “deemed not fit to be let”. That’s not “we’re choosing not to let them”. That’s “we can’t let them”. It implies condition problems — repairs, compliance, safety, standards — or legal/structural issues that mean the properties cannot be occupied. And it raises an obvious question: if the council owns homes that are unfit to be lived in, why are they still in that state?

The timing makes it worse. This budget pack shows housing pressures rising. Everyone in local government knows the national context: temporary accommodation costs, homelessness prevention duties, and the churn of households in precarious situations. Against that background, four council-owned homes sitting empty and unlettable is not just an embarrassment. It is a failure to turn an asset into a public good.

And it is not just about homelessness. Even if these homes are not suitable for emergency placements, or not in the right locations, a lettable home is a lettable home. It can reduce pressure on private rentals, it can generate rental income, it can house a local family, it can remove a recurring “holding cost” from the revenue budget. Instead, the council is now formalising the opposite: an annual budget line to carry emptiness.

The council’s papers call the £63,000 “unavoidable”. That is a strange word in this context. The bills may be unavoidable once the homes are empty and unlettable, but the situation itself should be treated as absolutely avoidable. Empty property premiums exist to force action. The point is not to shrug and budget for them indefinitely. The point is to stop paying them.

So what should residents expect next? At a minimum, Full Council should demand a short, factual disclosure: what are the four properties, how long have they been empty, what exactly makes them “not fit to be let”, and what is the fix?

There are only a few credible options:

Either the council funds the repairs and compliance works needed to bring the properties back into use; or it disposes of them quickly and transparently if they are genuinely uneconomic to restore; or it explains, in detail, why neither option is currently possible and publishes a timetable for resolution. What should not be acceptable is the fourth option: a quiet slide into “we’ll just keep paying”.

Because if the council is prepared to carry four unlettable homes and call it “unavoidable”, residents are entitled to ask what else is quietly drifting in the background — unchallenged, unmanaged, and paid for simply because it is easier to add a budget line than to fix the problem.

The Shepway Vox Team

Dissent is NOT a Crime