Folkestone Silver Spring Site: Channex and the BVI Trail Behind Aldi, Burger King and Costa

Aldi, Burger King and Costa are heading for the old Silver Spring site. But behind the shiny signs and paper cups sits a corporate trail running from Folkestone to Purley, Geneva,  Liechtenstein and the British Virgin Islands. Welcome, once again, to regeneration with a side order of offshore paperwork.

The old Silver Spring site at Park Farm has waited years for a second life. Once it gave Folkestone mineral water. Now, if all goes to plan, it’ll give Folkestone discount groceries, drive-thru coffee and another place to buy a burger without leaving the car.

Progress, they call it.

The former Silver Spring factory was demolished years ago. The land sat empty for so long it was in danger of becoming less a development site and more a local geological period. Then came the latest promise: Aldi, Burger King, Costa, employment units, builders’ merchant space and, according to the happy regeneration script, hundreds of jobs.

All very neat. All very retail-park. All very “nothing to see here, please proceed to the next window”.

Except there is something to see here.

Because the company behind the main Silver Spring/Park Farm planning permission is Channex Project Management Ltd. And when we followed the paperwork — as we tend to do, because someone has to do the boring bit while everyone else is admiring the CGI — the trail didn’t stop at Park Farm Road.

It went to Channex Holdings Ltd.

Then to Rivazzura International Corporation.

Then to the British Virgin Islands.

Then to Liechtenstein

Then to a c/o address in Geneva.

And, sitting in the background of the Channex/Ravensbourne story, it also led back to Adrian Kirby, whose past isn’t rumour, gossip or internet froth. It’s recorded in Hansard.

From Silver Spring to Channex

The public-facing planning story is straightforward. Folkestone & Hythe District Council has approved the redevelopment of the former Silver Spring site. The main hybrid permission, application 22/1347/FH, named Channex Project Management Ltd as applicant. The scheme included a foodstore, employment floorspace and two café/restaurant drive-thru units.

The reserved matters application then brought forward the details for the two drive-thru restaurants. KentOnline has now reported those as Burger King and Costa.

So far, so cardboard cup.

But Channex Project Management Ltd wasn’t some ancient Folkestone trading company that had been quietly filling bottles since Queen Victoria had her hat on. It was incorporated in May 2019 as Channex GP1 Ltd, then renamed Channex Project Management Ltd in October 2020.

Companies House records its active person with significant control as Channex Holdings Ltd. and the person of significant control of this company is Katerina Kirby

And that’s where the corporate nesting dolls begin.

The £1 company with a £4.9m group balance

The latest Channex Holdings Ltd accounts are worth reading, preferably with strong tea.

They show a company with net assets of £1. They show one employee, including directors. They show £2,005 of fixed asset investments. They also show £4.9m owed by group undertakings and £4,902,020 of other creditors due within one year.

So there we have the modern development miracle: a £1 balance-sheet bottom line, a multi-million-pound group balance, and a major Folkestone redevelopment site heading for the planning finish line.

None of that is automatically unlawful. Small-company accounts are legal. Audit exemptions are legal. Group structures are legal. Thin balance sheets are legal.

But legal doesn’t mean uninteresting.

And when a prominent Folkestone site is being redeveloped through companies that lead into trusts, the British Virgin Islands, Liechtenstein and Geneva  the public is entitled to ask what checks were done, what councillors were told, and whether anyone at FHDC asked the simple old-fashioned question: who, ultimately, is behind this?

The British Virgin Islands bit

Channex Holdings Ltd’s own accounts say it is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rivazzura International Corporation.

That isn’t our phrase. It’s in the accounts.

Rivazzura International Corporation appears in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Offshore Leaks database as a British Virgin Islands entity in the Panama Papers / Mossack Fonseca data, linked to Liechtenstein.

Now, let’s be precise, because precision matters. Being in the ICIJ database does not prove wrongdoing. Offshore companies can be used for lawful purposes. ICIJ itself says inclusion in the database is not intended to imply illegal or improper conduct.

But equally, this isn’t some wild leap from a man on Facebook with a laminated spreadsheet. This is an offshore entity named in Channex Holdings Ltd’s accounts, and that same name appears in ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks database.

That is newsworthy.

It’s especially newsworthy when the local story being sold to residents is simple: Aldi, Costa, Burger King, jobs.

The deeper story is not simple. It’s Aldi, Costa, Burger King, jobs — and a corporate ownership structure that wanders off to the BVI before stopping for a paperwork espresso in Geneva.

The Geneva filing cabinet

The Channex Holdings accounts say Rivazzura’s consolidated financial statements are available from c/o Saffery (Suisse) SA, Rue de la Confédération 5, CH-1204 Geneva, Switzerland.

Again, this isn’t an allegation. It’s in the accounts.

Saffery’s own published material confirms that Saffery (Suisse) SA is registered at Rue de la Confédération 5 in Geneva. ICIJ’s database also contains an historic Panama Papers entry for Saffery Champness (Suisse) S.A., but at a different Geneva address.

That distinction matters. We’re not saying the exact Channex accounts address is itself an ICIJ hit. We’re saying Rivazzura is in ICIJ’s data, and the Channex accounts separately point to a Saffery Geneva address for inspection of Rivazzura’s consolidated accounts.

It’s a small distinction, but small distinctions are what stop journalism becoming pub foghorn.

Ravensbourne, Channex and the old trail

Long before Burger King and Costa entered stage left, ShepwayVox had already looked at the former Silver Spring site.

In April 2022, we reported that the land had been bought in October 2014 by Ravensbourne Gateway Ltd for £5,428,000, with Ravensbourne Holding S.A.R.L. of Luxembourg as lender. We also reported that Ravensbourne Gateway later changed its name to Mutanderis 100 Ltd and was dissolved in May 2021.

Companies House records also show charges involving Channex-linked entities and land on the west side of Park Farm, including references to a transfer dated 13 April 2018 between Ravensbourne Gateway Ltd and Channex Investments (Drive 2) Ltd.

So the safest formulation is not that “Channex used to be Ravensbourne” as a simple one-line name change.

The better formulation is sharper and more accurate: the Silver Spring/Park Farm site has a Ravensbourne-linked land and charge history, followed by Channex-linked development vehicles, with Adrian Kirby appearing in the public PSC/control history of key Channex companies.

That’s less slogan. More paper trail.

And the paper trail is where this story lives.

Kirby’s conviction

Then we come to Adrian Kirby.

This must be written carefully, because the point is not abuse. The point is public interest.

Hansard records that Adrian Kirby, then chief executive of Atlantic Waste, and Adam Share hired Active Investigation Services after Environment Agency scrutiny of a waste site. Hansard says the agency accepted Atlantic’s proposal to tap phones and hack computers.

It records that Kirby and Share each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to cause modification of computer equipment and conspiracy to intercept communications unlawfully. It records that Adrian Kirby received six months in jail.

That conviction doesn’t decide a planning application. Planning is about land use, highways, design, impact, conditions and policy. A spent conviction isn’t a magic planning refusal button.

But it is plainly relevant background when looking at the corporate history behind a major local redevelopment site.

Residents are entitled to know that the old Silver Spring site didn’t simply pass from “old drinks factory” to “new Aldi”. It passed through a more complicated world of corporate vehicles, charges, trusts, offshore ownership and a figure whose past conviction is recorded in Parliament.

That’s not planning hysteria.

That’s due diligence.

The planning committee and the legal wobble

The main Silver Spring application wasn’t exactly plain sailing either.

FHDC’s own December 2024 planning report says the application had already gone to committee in June 2024, when councillors voted unanimously in favour. But after that, Lidl’s solicitors wrote to the council warning that a judicial challenge could arise.

Their concerns included alleged failure to advertise the application as a departure from the development plan, lack of up-to-date shopping-habits data, failure to publish the council’s retail assessment on the public file, lack of conditions restricting retail operations, and retail impact/sequential-test issues.

Officers didn’t accept all the criticisms would make the decision vulnerable. But they did bring the application back to committee.

That alone tells us something. This was not a routine rubber-stamp tucked behind a till receipt. It was a major out-of-centre retail application, on an allocated site, involving a departure from part of the local plan, with legal challenge smoke coming from the Lidl camp.

In the end, officers recommended approval. The council accepted the development would not fully accord with Policy RL11 because it included a foodstore and did not include the office, hotel or leisure uses allocated in the local plan. But officers concluded the alternative use was acceptable and that the retail impact would not be significantly adverse.

So the planning system gave its answer.

Our question is different.

Did the council’s public-facing process give residents the full ownership picture?

The Question FHDC Should Answer

Nobody sensible says the presence of a BVI company automatically proves wrongdoing. It doesn’t.

Nobody sensible says a Geneva address automatically proves wrongdoing. It doesn’t.

Nobody sensible says a historic conviction automatically means a planning application must fail. It doesn’t.

But put the pieces together and the public-interest question becomes obvious.

A prominent Folkestone redevelopment site. A Channex applicant. A holding company. A wholly owned BVI parent. Consolidated accounts inspectable in Geneva. Trust-control wording on Companies House. A Ravensbourne-linked land trail. A former PSC with a conviction recorded in Hansard. A planning permission that had to return to committee after Lidl raised legal-threat concerns.

At some point, “move along please” stops being an answer.

The people of Folkestone are being sold a simple story: Aldi, Burger King, Costa and jobs.

The paperwork tells a more complicated story: offshore ownership, trust control, past convictions, legal shadows and a council that needs to explain exactly what due diligence it carried out before one of the town’s most visible brownfield sites was waved through.

Because when the first burger is flipped and the first latte is passed through the hatch, residents will still be entitled to ask a basic question.

Who really benefits from the old Silver Spring site?

And did Folkestone & Hythe District Council properly look under the bonnet before handing over the keys?

There are legitimate uses for offshore companies and trusts. The inclusion of a person or entity in this article is not intended to suggest or imply that they have engaged in illegal or improper conduct.

The Shepway Vox Team

Being Voxatious is NOT a Crime