A new Folkestone & Hythe District Council scrutiny report gives a detailed picture of carbon emissions and biodiversity policy. It also raises an important point of political fairness.
The report measures district emissions from 2005 to 2023. Across those eighteen years, the council (then Shepway District Council, later Folkestone & Hythe District Council) was led by former Cllr Robert Bliss’s and then former Cllr David Monk’s Conservatives. If those figures are now being used as proof of progress, then the Conservative administrations in office during those years deserve a fair share of the credit for setting direction, adopting policy and sustaining environmental work.
The report OS/25/15 – uses Department for Energy Security & Net Zero data and explains that there are two main ways to read the numbers. In the “within the scope of influence of local authorities” dataset — which excludes sources such as large industrial sites, railways and motorways — Folkestone & Hythe recorded the biggest proportional fall in Kent: down 55 per cent, from 736.2 ktCO2e in 2005 to 334.3 ktCO2e in 2023.
On the same measure, the district’s per-person emissions fell by 59 per cent, tied with Dartford for the highest reduction in Kent. By 2023, Folkestone & Hythe had the second-lowest per-capita figure in Kent at 3.0 tCO2e.
The fuller DESNZ dataset, which includes motorways and other sources, is less dramatic but still substantial. On that basis, Folkestone & Hythe’s total emissions fell by 49 per cent (from 928.4 to 471.2 ktCO2e), while per-capita emissions fell by 54 per cent (from 9.1 to 4.2 tCO2e). The report rightly notes that this wider dataset can be influenced by whether a district contains motorways or major industrial sites.
The same report also stresses a basic but often-missed point: the council’s own emissions account for only around 0.4 per cent of the district total. That means councils influence district-wide outcomes mainly through planning policy, land management, partnership work and local leadership rather than direct control alone.
That is exactly why the older decisions matter.
As The Shepway Vox Team reported in 2021, twelve years before the council declared a Climate & Ecological Emergency in 2019, the council’s Conservative-led Cabinet signed the Nottingham Declaration on Climate Change. On 20 June 2007, Cabinet voted six in favour, two against and none abstained. Signing up meant committing the council to develop plans with partners and local communities to address the causes and impacts of climate change according to local priorities.
There is a similar story on biodiversity. On 6 August 2008, Report C/08/22 set out the legal and policy basis for biodiversity action and stated plainly that public bodies must have regard to biodiversity when exercising their functions. That reflected the Section 40 duty in the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006.
The later record points to continuity, not a sudden conversion. A presentation to the Climate & Ecological Working Group, chaired by former Green councillor Lesley Whybrow, stated that the Royal Military Canal (of which Princes Parade is a small part) had been managed to increase species counts over the previous 15 years, alongside work with specialist wildlife groups and volunteer habitat planting. The council’s Carbon Action Plan, adopted by Cabinet on 24 February 2021, also stated that the council would use land it owns to increase biodiversity and carry out tree planting where appropriate.
The new scrutiny report shows how that framework now sits inside formal planning policy, highlighting low-carbon and biodiversity policies including CC1, CC2, NE2, NE3 and Core Strategy Review policy CSD4. It also notes that biodiversity and countryside policies are used regularly in planning refusals, and records practical work such as reduced grass cutting in selected areas under the Bee Kind Initiative, plus strategic work through the Green and Blue Infrastructure Strategy and the Kent and Medway Local Nature Recovery Strategy.
Campaigners worried about Princes Parade are entitled to scrutinise every promise made on habitats and wildlife. The council has also publicly said Princes Parade would create new habitats, accessible parkland and a series of open spaces, while opponents have questioned whether delivery will match the promise. But the council’s own documents, across different administrations and political colours, do show a longer history of biodiversity management and policy development than some public debate sometimes acknowledges.
None of this means “job done”. The scrutiny report says harder-to-cut emissions from homes and transport remain, and future progress may slow. But if the district is going to celebrate the long-run trend from 2005 to 2023, accuracy requires one more sentence: for those years, the council was Conservative-led, and on emissions reduction and biodiversity groundwork, they deserve praise where praise is due.
The Shepway Vox Team
Journalism For The People NOT The Powerful
