Leas Pavilion Folkestone: the £20m Claim the Filed Accounts Do Not Support

For years, Folkestone was sold a dream in glossy renders: restored heritage, luxury flats and a grand old pavilion brought back to life above the Channel. What the town has instead is a stalled site, two hulking concrete cores and yet another large claim that wilts when you hold it up to the public record.

There is an old rule in development. When the site looks bleak, the brochure must look dazzling. Leas Pavilion was a masterclass in the genre. Blue skies. Polished balconies. A revived landmark. A taste of continental glamour on The Leas. The reality, visible to anyone with a working pair of eyes, is rather less Côte d’Azur and rather more concrete standstill.

Now comes the latest reassurance. Bernard Dardenne, a director of Leas Pavilion Development Ltd, has been quoted as saying that Mylecke NV has “invested close to £20 million of its own funds” to save the project from “certain failure”. That is not a throwaway remark. It is a very specific and very substantial claim. It is also exactly the sort of claim that ought to leave very clear fingerprints in the accounts, the filings, or both.

So we looked.

And the first awkward fact is this: only two sets of accounts have ever been filed for Leas Pavilion Development Ltd at Companies House, one for the period to 30 November 2021 and one for the year to 30 November 2022. The next accounts, made up to 31 May 2024, are overdue. The company’s status is “Receiver Action”. In plain English, the public financial trail stops a long way short of the present day.

The 2021 accounts do not show anything like a £20 million funding injection from Mylecke NV. They show stocks of £7,276,492, cash of only £18,795, creditors due within one year of £1,513,953, creditors due after more than one year of £7,644,324, and net liabilities of £1,677,743. Called-up share capital was £200. The related-party notes are striking mainly for how modest they are beside the later KentOnline claim: £100,000 owed to the director and £60,000 owed to an associated entity. That is not remotely the same thing as “close to £20 million of its own funds”.

The 2022 accounts do not bridge that gap either. They show stocks rising to £11,371,109, cash of £91,183, creditors due within one year of £6,519,995, creditors due after more than one year of £10,639,848, and net liabilities worsening to £4,458,557. Again, called-up share capital remained £200. Again, the notes do not disclose a £20 million injection by Mylecke NV. They record a director loan balance of £120,383, an associated-entity debtor of £384,584, and state that £3,179,750 of other loans was secured by a personal guarantee from Olivier Daelemans (pictured).A personal guarantee is not the same as cash actually invested by Mylecke NV.

That distinction matters. A guarantee is credit support. It is not the same as a shareholder putting fresh money into the company. If you tell the public that “close to £20 million” of your own funds has gone in, ordinary readers are entitled to assume you mean real money, not a looser mix of backing, exposure, guarantees and hopeful interpretation after the fact. The last filed accounts were also unaudited. Kreston Reeves expressly stated that it had not been instructed to carry out an audit or review, had not verified the accuracy or completeness of the accounting records or explanations given to it, and did not express any opinion on the statutory financial statements.

Then there is the charge history, which makes the story sharper rather than softer.

The first debenture was created on 4 April 2022 in favour of Octopus Real Estate S.à r.l. as security agent. It covered the same Leas Pavilion freehold, contained fixed and floating charges, and included a negative pledge. But that charge was later satisfied in full on 27 February 2023. Companies House records both the satisfied status and the filing of an MR04 satisfaction on that date. So whatever security structure existed around Octopus in April 2022, it is not the live problem now.

The live problem is the second debenture. That one was created on 23 December 2022 in favour of TAB ACM Limited and delivered to Companies House on 28 December 2022. It covers the same freehold property at 7 and 8 The Leas, 1 to 4 Longford Terrace, 2 Cheriton Place and The Leas Club, Folkestone, title number TT124667. It too contains fixed charge, floating charge and negative pledge language. Unlike the Octopus charge, this one is still shown by Companies House as outstanding.

That is not just a dry Companies House footnote. It matters because the TAB debenture is written as continuing security until all secured liabilities have been “unconditionally and irrevocably paid and discharged in full”. It also says the floating charge automatically and immediately converts into a fixed charge if, among other things, a receiver is appointed over charged property, or if the lender receives notice of the appointment of, or intention to appoint, an administrator. In other words, the charge document itself is built for enforcement when things go badly wrong.

And things plainly did go badly wrong. Companies House now records an insolvency case described as “Receiver/Manager appointed”, with FRP practitioners appointed on 31 October 2024 and one later ceasing to act on 4 March 2026 while another was appointed from that date. So when anyone tries to present the receiver issue as some technical side plot, the public record points the other way. The receiver action sits alongside the outstanding TAB charge, not the old Octopus charge that was satisfied back in February 2023.

That makes the £20 million claim look even shakier. Because once you follow the charges, a rather stark picture emerges. The first lender’s security was discharged. A second lender then took a fresh debenture over the same site. That later debenture remains outstanding. Receivers were appointed while that later security was live. Meanwhile the last publicly filed accounts are old, unaudited, and do not show anything like a disclosed £20 million funding injection by Mylecke NV. That does not absolutely prove no further money ever went in after November 2022. But it does mean the bold public claim is not supported by the public documentary trail currently available.

That is why we asked Mr Dardenne straightforward questions on 5 March. Who actually controls the site now? What, exactly, has been signed with any new lender? What sum has really been committed? What is first in the queue for any refinancing money: restarting works, or paying off the secured debt? How many buyers are there, where are their deposits, and what protection do they have if the freehold changes hands? Where are the salvaged heritage elements? What binds any future owner to put them back? Those are not gotcha questions. They are the basic questions any town should ask when a listed landmark has been half-demolished, half-rebuilt and then left to brood over the seafront like a grey warning from the gods of overconfident property finance.

On 7 March, Mr Dardenne said he would come back “early next week” with initial answers so that future reporting could be based on “verified facts”. At the time of writing, no answers have arrived.

And that, really, is the point. This story is no longer about glossy visuals or warm words about refinancing being just around the corner. It is about records. Charges. Accounts. Enforcement. Evidence. The sort of things that are not impressed by an elegant brochure or a polished line to the press.

Folkestone has heard enough about what is supposedly just about to happen: just about to restart, just about to refinance, just about to be rescued. The town does not need another seafront fairy tale dressed up in premium finishes and panoramic views. It needs proof.

Until that proof appears, the public is entitled to treat the £20 million claim with exactly the degree of confidence the public record presently supports: very little.

KentOnline may publish what it is told. We prefer to publish what can be checked. On the checked public record now available, the £20 million claim is not established. Folkestone can judge for itself who is reporting, and who is repeating unverified facts.

The Shepway Vox Team

Discernibly Different Dissent