New Folkestone Society Chair Matthew Jones on Heritage, Regeneration and Folkestone’s Future

A conversation with Matthew Jones, Chair of the New Folkestone Society, with Tony Quarrington also joining the discussion, on Folkestone’s past, present and future — from the harbour and seafront to Grace Hill, the 1698 map, jobs, pride and why the town still needs people willing to speak up.

There are towns where history sits quietly behind glass, labelled, dusted and politely ignored. Folkestone isn’t one of them.

Here, history keeps interrupting the present. It appears in the curve of the Leas, the lanes above the Old High Street, the library at Grace Hill, the old maps, the harbour, the seafront skyline, the buildings people love, the buildings people argue over, and the public spaces everyone somehow feels they own.

That is where the New Folkestone Society comes in.

The Society was founded in the 1970s and is now a registered charity. Its formal objects are about public interest, planning, architecture, and protecting features of historic or public importance. Its Charity Commission entry describes its activities as talks, lectures, social events, excursions, practical projects affecting the town, reports on local concerns and monitoring planning applications.

But that only tells you the machinery. It doesn’t tell you the mood.

Matthew Jones – pictured, the Society’s chair, talks about Folkestone not as a museum, but as a living town that has to keep changing without forgetting what makes it itself. He isn’t against new buildings. He isn’t against investment. He isn’t against regeneration. What he wants, repeatedly, is change that belongs here, listens here, and benefits more than just those with the money to shape it.

Tony Quarrington – pictured, joins the conversation too, widening the discussion into music, visitors, blue plaques, local characters, lost stories and the possibility that Folkestone could sell itself far better by understanding the extraordinary amount it already has.

This is not a conversation about stopping the clock. It’s about asking who gets to wind it.

Matthew, for people who’ve heard the name but don’t really know what it does, what is the New Folkestone Society — and why does Folkestone still need a civic society in 2026?

“In the first instance, the Society exists to promote what we have in the built environment,” Matthew says, “and where necessary, challenges to ensure that it’s all to the benefit of all, and not just the few.”

That phrase — “not just the few” — runs through almost everything that follows.

For Matthew, the built environment isn’t only about attractive buildings. It’s about the life that happens around them. Folkestone has outstanding architecture, he says, sometimes in individual buildings, sometimes in whole clusters, often in conservation areas. The Society wants to encourage the retention of local character, while helping to make Folkestone “a more attractive town” in which to live and work.

That is the civic-society argument in plain English. Buildings matter because people live among them. Streets matter because they shape how a town feels. Planning matters because once a decision is made, the consequences can stand in brick, concrete and glass for generations.

The Society has been part of the town’s civic life since the 1970s. How has its role changed as Folkestone itself has changed?

Looking back over Society magazines and articles going back more than 50 years, Matthew isn’t convinced the basic arguments have changed all that much.

The Society was challenging major developments decades ago. He talks about the Grand Burstin Hotel as one of the early examples, and the wider point is clear: yesterday’s planning battles become today’s built environment. The skyline people now argue from was once a decision somebody else made.

Folkestone, of course, has always changed. Matthew isn’t pretending otherwise. He points to buildings that may divide opinion but still have architectural value: the former gas showroom in Sandgate Road, with its Art Deco quality, and the more modernist or brutalist architecture near Sandgate Road and West Terrace.

“They may not be everybody’s taste,” he says, but they are part of the town’s architectural story. Some of them now look “rather sad and unloved”, and the Society wants owners to maintain them properly.

There’s no anti-modern manifesto here. Matthew says the Society welcomes new architecture “in the right setting”. It has hosted talks on new architecture in heritage environments. Architecture, like society, changes and evolves.

The real question is whether change has any respect for the place it joins.

You’re listed as chair and social/events portfolio holder. What brought you into the Society, and what made you want to take on the chair’s role?

Matthew came to Folkestone through family, but stayed through belonging.

His wife is from Hythe and went to Folkestone School for Girls. Matthew himself is originally from the Black Country, then lived in Croydon and Hertford. When his wife wanted to return home, he wanted to become part of the town rather than merely live in it.

“Being new to the area, I was keen to become rooted in the town and the community,” he says.

The Society gave him that route in. It introduced him to “wonderful, caring and inspirational people”. That sounds simple, but it says a lot. Civic life isn’t only about policies, objections, meetings and minutes. It is also about people finding one another, learning a place, and deciding to give something back.

That seems to be why Matthew talks about being rooted. You can live somewhere for years and never feel rooted. Or you can arrive, get involved, listen, work, argue, help, and slowly become part of the town’s fabric.

The Society’s charitable objects talk about public interest, good planning, architecture and protecting features of historic or public importance. How do you turn those formal aims into real action on the ground?

The answer is listening.

“One of the key elements is listening to others and asking questions,” Matthew says.

The Society surveys its membership and, where possible, reaches a wider audience through social media and public engagement. He gives examples: the red-brick section of Folca, Grace Hill, and the harbour development. These are not theoretical case studies. They are live local issues where the Society has tried to test opinion before speaking.

“By formally surveying opinions, it provides New Folkestone Society’s strong mandate,” he says.

That matters because Matthew doesn’t believe the Society can simply claim to speak for the town. It has to ask. It has to listen. It has to be able to show that a view is more than the preference of one chair, one committee, or one especially energetic meeting.

Respect, he says, is key to the Society’s future.

That may sound gentle. It isn’t. Respect can be a strong civic tool. It means respecting the public enough to ask them. Respecting planning enough to study it. Respecting heritage enough to understand it. And respecting the future enough not to shrug while irreversible decisions are made.

Folkestone is often described as a town being “regenerated”. How do you decide when change is good regeneration — and when it risks damaging the town’s character?

For Matthew, regeneration has to be linked to wealth generation, and wealth generation has to benefit “all and not just the few”.

The town centre is the obvious test. The Harbour Arm has been a success. Parts of Folkestone continue to prosper. Yet the town centre has struggled, and Matthew describes the familiar “doughnut effect” seen in many towns: activity around the edges while the centre slowly deteriorates.

Shopping habits have changed. Councils have had to respond. Matthew gives credit to current and previous administrations for recognising the problem and trying to find solutions. The retention and repurposing of Folca is welcomed. He also praises good officers at the district council.

“The success of the town centre is central for all of our town,” he says, “and everyone must strive to make the town centre a success.”

That leads into one of Folkestone’s most persistent descriptions: a town of two halves. Matthew sees the town centre as the hinge between east and west. If that centre becomes neglected, it deepens the divide. If it works, it helps close it.

“The town centre belongs to everybody,” he says.

That is an important civic sentence. It isn’t just a shopping area. It isn’t just a line in a regeneration bid. It’s where people from different parts of Folkestone, and from outside the town, meet one another. Around the bus station and the adjoining streets, Matthew sees a shared space. If regeneration works there, it doesn’t just improve a few shopfronts. It helps Folkestone feel more like one town.

The harbour and seafront development has been one of the biggest planning arguments in Folkestone for years. What, in your view, has that debate revealed about local democracy, public consultation and the balance between private development and public place?

The Society welcomes investment in Folkestone. The difficulty comes when investment stops listening to the place it lands in.

When details of the harbour and seafront development became public, the Society surveyed as many people as possible. Matthew recalls that about 91% of respondents did not like the proposed plan, and that more than 1,240 people responded.

That wasn’t treated as a licence simply to shout no. The Society sat down, considered the comments and produced a detailed report. It set out what people welcomed, what they liked, what they disliked, where explanations were needed, and what opportunities may have been missed.

“It was a constructive and positive document,” Matthew says, “and it would cost any developer a fortune to produce.”

The sadness in his answer is that engagement depends on both sides wanting it. Developers and investors can be encouraged to engage, but not forced into a meaningful conversation. On this occasion, Matthew says the individual concerned “wasn’t keen to engage”. He had his own ideas, and “we can see that those ideas have been pushed through.”

The planning process, he says, is difficult because so much rests on precedent. That brings the argument back to earlier decisions. The height and volume of past developments can become the justification for what follows. A battle lost decades ago is not always finished; it can come back wearing a new application number.

“Planning decisions made today have implications over the future,” Matthew says. “That’s why it’s important. We do challenge and we do look at the wider picture.”

The conversation turns to height, scale and the human feel of a town. Matthew says developers are shrewd. Once tall buildings are accepted in one place, that can affect what is argued for elsewhere. He mentions structures some residents feel sit out of keeping with Folkestone’s skyline.

The issue is not height in the abstract. It is whether a town feels human. Matthew talks about places where people can walk around and feel part of the environment rather than overwhelmed by it. Design codes, he says, could help by taking local materials, colours and architectural styles seriously.

Folkestone has stone, brick, colour, slopes, views and a coastline that doesn’t need much help to be dramatic. The danger is not that new architecture exists. It is that new architecture behaves as though Folkestone is a blank sheet.

“If you can see that, and I can see that,” Matthew says, “it makes you question what other people do see. And that’s where, as a society, we have to come in and challenge.”

The Society nominated Folkestone Library as an Asset of Community Value. Why did that building matter so much, and what does the library story say about how public buildings are valued — or undervalued — in the town?

To understand Grace Hill, Matthew goes back to where the building came from.

The library, he says, was designed and built by Folkestone people and paid for by Folkestone people. It later passed to Kent County Council when library services were reorganised.

He understands that austerity has hit local government and that difficult decisions have had to be made. But some decisions can’t be undone. The sale of Grace Hill by public auction, he says, would have been one of them.

“We felt very strongly that was not right,” he says. “For Folkestone, it wasn’t right from any point of view.”

When the building closed, the Society surveyed its membership. Petitions were gathered. Members of the public helped. The Save Our Library campaign pushed the issue into the public realm. Questions were asked of KCC. Pressure built.

“No matter what happened, nobody was listening,” Matthew says. “Nobody wanted to listen.”

The Society produced a “10 reasons why” document for saving Grace Hill. Matthew says it remains just as important now as it was three or four years ago.

Nominating the library as an Asset of Community Value was one way of delaying disposal and buying time. At the same time, conversations were taking place with Folkestone & Hythe District Council about enforcement, because the building was continuing to deteriorate from water ingress.

Then something happened. Once those conversations with officers and councillors began, scaffolding appeared. Workmen appeared. Securing works began. Steps were taken to prevent further deterioration and dehumidify parts of the building.

Matthew’s conclusion is direct: that action came because the Save Our Library campaign, the New Folkestone Society and others brought political pressure to bear.

The emotional force of the library story comes when he describes visiting the building. He filmed it and put the video on social media. Inside, it still had bookshelves. It still looked bright, welcoming and cheerful.

Then comes the phrase that should probably go above the door one day: it was “yearning for readers”.

That’s why Grace Hill mattered. It wasn’t only a building. It was a public memory still waiting to be used.

Heritage, Matthew says, is tied to pride in place. Well-designed historic environments make people feel good. They help people feel rooted. They give a town character and identity.

“It means we’re not a nowhere town,” he says. “We’re not an anywhere town. We’re Folkestone.”

That is the library argument in one sentence. Lose enough of those buildings, and eventually the town starts to forget how to recognise itself.

The Society is also involved in talks, events and historical research, including the 1698 map project. Why does understanding old Folkestone matter when the town is making decisions about new Folkestone?

“The history of Folkestone is one of our greatest assets,” Matthew says.

People travel to places with strong heritage identities: Canterbury, London, Chester, York. Folkestone has its own story, but it has to draw that story out, understand it and value it.

The town has a high-speed rail link. It has proximity to the Channel Tunnel and the port. It has the Leas, the Old High Street, the Bayle, lanes, slopes, sea views, music history, sporting history and buildings with stories still barely told.

“We need to understand our local history and tell a good story,” Matthew says.

Heritage should not be treated as an inconvenience. Matthew is critical of developments where older buildings could have been retained and repurposed as community spaces, work hubs, cafés, restaurants, library space or museum space, but weren’t. Too often, he says, there is “no imagination” and “no understanding”.

This is not an argument for preserving everything exactly as it is. It is an argument for imagination. Old buildings can do new work. Heritage can be a living economic asset as well as a cultural one.

That is where jobs come in.

Matthew is proud of his Black Country roots, and he sees similarities between places that have lost work, lost industries and then tried to find a new story. Housing alone won’t solve that. “Without jobs, it isn’t a solution,” he says. “Just building housing isn’t a solution.”

Heritage, in his view, can help create jobs. Better use of the Leas, better promotion of hotels, stronger links between events and accommodation, heritage trails, blue plaques, music history, open days and cultural tourism can all encourage visitors to stay longer and spend more.

The practical test is simple. Can a one-night stay become a two-night stay? Can a two-night stay become three? Can hotel occupancy improve because the town gives people more reasons to come and more reasons to stay?

Tony Quarrington – pictured, develops the point with real warmth. Folkestone has had musicians, writers, performers, sporting figures and famous visitors pass through. Some stayed, some visited, some played here, some simply left behind stories. Yet many of those stories are barely visible in the town itself.

The idea of “walking in the footsteps of” notable people is powerful because it turns memory into movement. A blue plaque is not just a marker. It is an invitation to look up, stop, read and feel that the street you are standing in belongs to a larger story.

Matthew then returns to the 1698 map project. The map, he says, was almost like a tithe map. It showed what was here, who owned which field, what was grown and how land was used. In that sense it is a remarkable record of what Folkestone looked like at a particular moment.

The plan is to restore and digitise it, then eventually overlay it with the current Ordnance Survey map. That would allow children, residents and visitors to see what once stood beneath the streets they know now.

For schools, the possibilities are obvious. A child could find where they live and discover that it was once a field, a lane, a route, a working landscape. They could see that some old paths still survive in modern form.

That is not dusty heritage. That is imagination with coordinates.

Civic societies can sometimes be dismissed as anti-change or nostalgic. How do you answer people who say groups like yours are simply trying to stop things happening?

Matthew knows the accusation well, and he adds another one: civic societies can also be seen as elitist.

“That is another challenge,” he says.

The Society has worked hard, under Matthew and previous chairs, to be open and inclusive. It supports opportunities to make Folkestone a fantastic place to live and work. It embraces change, but it wants to be constructive when it disagrees.

“We’re not anti-change,” he says. “We’re not nostalgic.”

The harbour development is again the example. The Society did not simply object. It produced a detailed document setting out what it liked, what it did not like, and where it saw opportunities.

“It isn’t a question of just objecting,” Matthew says. “You’ve got to substantiate your objection, and you’ve got to lay out your argument.”

That is a useful answer to the lazy caricature of civic societies as permanent objectors in sensible shoes. The Society knows it won’t win every argument. But even when it loses, it wants to make the next argument better informed.

A good objection is not just a complaint. It is evidence, reasoning, alternatives and public support. It may not stop a scheme. It may change it. It may help councillors and officers think again. It may build the relationships needed for the next issue.

Matthew also stresses that the Society is not political. It wants to work with all sides and challenge all sides where necessary. Relationships with the public, councillors and council officers all matter.

The democratic point is crucial. Matthew doesn’t want the Society to become a private opinion machine. Its public views should be based on listening and consultation. On Folca, the harbour and the library, the Society surveyed people and used those responses to shape its position.

“It isn’t the chair’s ambition,” he says. “It isn’t the chair’s view.”

In a time when many residents don’t buy newspapers and many don’t use social media, face-to-face civic life matters. Matthew is also alive to the modern problem of misinformation, disinformation and AI. The Society’s answer is not to retreat into private meetings. It is to hold events, run stalls, talk to people and keep inviting them in.

That might sound old-fashioned. It might also be exactly what towns need.

Looking ahead, what are the biggest issues the New Folkestone Society will be watching — planning, heritage, public spaces, seafront development, community assets — and how can residents get involved rather than just complain from the sidelines?

Local government reorganisation is high on Matthew’s list. He worries that new unitary structures could make planning feel more remote from local people, with more decisions taken by officers and less visible influence from councillors and residents.

The Society is not waiting passively. It has been speaking with other civic societies across East Kent, including Dover, Sandgate, Hythe, Ramsgate, Margate and Faversham. Together, they have helped create the East Kent Civic Forum.

“The waters are so murky,” Matthew says, “it’s going to be difficult to know exactly which way we’re going.”

That uncertainty is precisely why civic societies may need to work together. They can share knowledge, compare experiences and, where necessary, create pressure on any new unitary authority. But Matthew also sees an opportunity. East Kent’s coastal towns all have heritage stories. Together, they could make a stronger case for visitors, tourism, cultural trails and longer stays.

Why should people only think of the Cotswolds or the Lake District when they think of heritage trips? Why shouldn’t they come to Kent, stay for two or three days, and discover the coast properly?

Tony’s contribution brings the issue back to residents. How do you persuade people to move from complaint to involvement?

Matthew’s answer is practical. Don’t be a talking shop. People want to join organisations that do things. They want ambition, delivery and visible results. Even when an argument is lost, you can still win friends, build credibility and strengthen the next campaign.

The Society wants people who are passionate about Folkestone. Newcomers are welcome. Long-standing residents are welcome. What matters is a positive attitude and a willingness to help.

The next big theme, Matthew says, is jobs. Not just heritage for heritage’s sake, but heritage linked to wealth creation, pride and opportunity.

He recalls visiting a school and asking pupils how many were proud of Folkestone. In a class of 30, only three hands went up. That clearly stayed with him. If young people don’t feel proud of where they come from, the town has more work to do than any regeneration brochure can admit.

Matthew imagines using buildings such as the library as real community spaces again. He talks about careers events, Creative Folkestone, opportunities for young people, and opportunities for people who have been out of work. He thinks Folkestone’s location could help attract companies, including European businesses looking for a UK base.

His message is straightforward: “We’re here and we’re willing to work.”

That may be the best summary of the New Folkestone Society under Matthew Jones. It is not here to wrap Folkestone in tissue paper. It is not here to sneer at new buildings or scold young people for liking modern things. It is here because the town matters, because some decisions cannot be undone, and because civic pride needs civic effort.

The final note is optimistic.

“I’ve always been an optimist,” Matthew says, “and I’m totally optimistic about Folkestone.”

He doesn’t pretend the town is perfect. Quite the opposite. But he sees enough beauty, history, character, opportunity and goodwill to believe in it.

And perhaps that is why Folkestone still needs a civic society in 2026. Not because the town should stop changing, but because change should have to answer to the people who live with it.

Folkestone is not a nowhere town. It is not an anywhere town.

It is Folkestone. And, as this conversation shows, there are still people prepared to say so.

The Shepway Vox Team

Dissent is NOT a Crime