Hythe Foxwood Homes Plan Approved With No Affordable Housing

Folkestone & Hythe councillors have approved Ureco’s Foxwood scheme for up to 150 homes on the former school site above Seabrook Road, Hythe. The number of affordable homes approved at the start is not 33, not 15, not five and not one. It’s zero. Hythe gets a clawback clause, a bundle of conditions and the familiar planning spectacle in which £86.7m of projected sales can apparently support homes, profit, engineering, fees and landscaping, but not affordable housing.

The application, 25/2112/FH, came before the Planning and Licensing Committee on yesterday evening and was passed by eight votes to two, with one abstention. It covers the former Foxwood School site at 59 Seabrook Road (below in orange), a sloping, wooded and long-vacant site that has been empty since 2016 and is allocated for housing. In committee-speak, it’s a hybrid application. In plain English, part of it is detailed, part of it is outline, and the total is up to 150 homes.

The affordable housing policy point is simple. Folkestone & Hythe’s Core Strategy policy CSD1 expects 22% affordable housing on developments of 15 or more homes, with a 70/30 split between affordable rented and intermediate housing. On a 150-home scheme, that’s roughly 33 affordable homes. Ureco’s scheme begins with none. The public benefit hasn’t merely been trimmed. It’s been sent to the shed and told to wait for the viability review.

The applicant’s own Financial Viability Assessment, prepared by Cushman & Wakefield for Ureco Property; owned offshore in Gibraltar and financed offshore from Jersey, put the gross development value at £86.68m, total development costs excluding developer profit at £70.6m, developer profit at £17.33m, residual site value at minus £2.557m and benchmark land value at £1m. It then listed proposed developer contributions as “Affordable Housing: Nil” and “S106 Contributions: Nil”. Somewhere in that grand procession of millions, Hythe’s affordable homes fell down a spreadsheet-shaped manhole.

The Shepway Vox Team’s earlier investigation set out why this matters. The proposal was heading to committee with up to 150 market homes, no affordable housing at the outset, and a viability case saying the scheme couldn’t currently stretch to the public benefit normally expected. It also reported that the financial position had been described as “finely balanced”, with the possibility that improved sales values or reduced build costs could later support a commuted sum. That isn’t an impossibility carved into stone. It’s a commercial judgement wearing a hard hat.

Local resident Paul Lomax told the committee he supported housing on the allocated site, but did not believe the scheme “genuinely reflects the landscape-led approach required by policy UA17”. He warned that the applicant’s own design material identified the former school plateaus as the most suitable places for development and the steeper slopes and priority habitat areas as the least suitable, yet the scheme had “progressively extended development into those problem areas”.

His sharpest line concerned the part of the scheme called Woodland Heights. “It is just nine houses,” he said, “yet appears to account for over two-thirds of the proposed tree and woodland removals, whilst causing significant ecological harm and requiring extensive engineering works.” Then came the sentence Ureco may wish had remained hidden behind the tree line: “The naming suggests the woodland is the asset, but the design treats it as the obstacle.” That’s the sort of phrase no amount of CGI shrubbery can rescue.

Hythe Town Council objected too. Cllr Nikki Stewart said the scheme claimed to be landscape-led, but in reality would lose mature trees and habitats, including deciduous woodland described as habitat of principal importance. “The building’s derelict,” she said, “but the wildlife and trees are abundant and thriving.” She also raised land slip, drainage, springs across the escarpment, density, pressure on services, water supply, wastewater removal and the “extremely disappointing” absence of low-cost housing.

The developer’s representative, architect Matt Whitby, gave the committee the polished version. He said the proposal was “truly landscape-led”, reduced the built footprint compared with the earlier scheme, retained mature trees “wherever practical”, added about 170 new trees, included open space, woodland trails, pedestrian routes, PV panels, air-source heat pumps, green roofs, EV charging and sustainable drainage. It was a full planning bingo card of modern comfort words. The square marked affordable housing, unfortunately, had been removed from the board.

Mr Whitby also said the scheme would bring local benefits, including a controlled pedestrian crossing on Seabrook Road, bus stop improvements and an affordable housing clawback mechanism through the Section 106 agreement. So Hythe doesn’t get affordable homes now. It gets a crossing, a bus stop and the possibility that, if the numbers improve later, the council may be allowed to rummage behind the viability sofa for loose change.

Cllr Anita Jones accepted the design was better than the previous scheme and that more trees had been considered, but said she still felt there were too many properties on the site. She raised drainage, water systems, traffic, the stability of the old railway embankment and the loss of trees on the bank. Then she put it plainly: “Big red flag for me is the lack of affordable housing. I think that’s really unacceptable.” She added: “I don’t think it’s acceptable to have a development of this size without some affordable housing.”

Cllr Paul Thomas was blunter. He reminded the committee that the previous Foxwood scheme had involved affordable housing and said the present position “doesn’t stack up with me at all”. Then came the quote of the night: “I think it’s a question of the fat hogs feeding at the trough first, to be perfectly honest with you.” It’s unlikely to appear in the next viability appraisal, though perhaps it should be filed somewhere between developer profit and professional fees.

Officers advised members that the council had to work from the evidence before it. They said the applicant had submitted an open-book viability report, the council had commissioned independent viability advice, and officers had reached the “unfortunate conclusion” that the scheme would not be viable if affordable housing was required at the outset. The site was allocated for housing, they said, and the planning balance had to reflect the need for delivery.

But the committee debate exposed the central absurdity. The site is said to be suitable because it’s allocated, brownfield and well located. It is also said to be costly because it sits on a hill, needs engineering works, has land stability concerns, drainage issues, springs and surface water constraints. Those same difficulties feed the abnormal costs, those costs feed the viability appraisal, and the appraisal eats the affordable housing. It’s a circular meal, with the public benefit served last and cold.

Cllr Mike Blakemore captured the ecological discomfort neatly. “Bats, badgers, reptiles, including slow worms, nesting birds, deciduous woodland,” he said. “It sounds like an episode of Springwatch before our eyes, which is going to be swept away by this.” He also asked where the surface water would go, particularly given references to a surface water sewer near Saxon Close ultimately discharging into the Royal Military Canal. Officers said the detailed drainage strategy would be secured by condition and that the proposed approach sought to reduce run-off by about 50% compared with current conditions.

The number of conditions became a story in itself. Cllr Blakemore said he didn’t think he had “ever seen quite as many conditions attached to an application as with this one”. Officers said many were pre-commencement conditions, including land stability, ecology and drainage, meaning the developer could not start until those details had been approved. That is reassuring up to a point. It also confirms this isn’t a simple brownfield tidy-up with a few houses and a marketing banner.

Cllr Adrian Lockwood made the viability point more precisely. He said the many conditions reflected “a lot of risks” and that those risks would have been priced into the viability calculation, “making the site look like it’s not viable in order to provide affordable housing”. He asked whether the council could be “a bit more aggressive” with the clawback if the risks were mitigated at lower cost and the site produced “a whacking profit”, so the district could get council houses from the proceeds.

The officer answer was cautious. The exact clawback would have to be worked through with the viability consultant and negotiated, but if the developer could build for less or sell for more, the council would expect to take a share of additional profit towards affordable housing. Officers also made clear the council could not simply claim every extra pound until the full affordable housing position had been recovered. In other words, the clawback has teeth, but not necessarily a jaw.

Cllr Gary Fuller asked whether biodiversity net gain money and arrangements would have to be secured before the first tree came down. Officers said no commencement, including cutting down trees, could occur without the biodiversity gain plan, habitat maintenance and monitoring plan, and off-site or on-site credits being agreed. The officer’s summary was useful: “They’re going to have to put their money where their mouth is before they can dig up a single tree.” Residents may wish to print that sentence and laminate it.

Cllr Jennifer Hollingsbee moved approval, saying Hythe was “a good place to build houses” and “a good place for people to live”, while also acknowledging that it had become too expensive for some people to even think about moving there. That was the contradiction of the evening in one neat bundle: Hythe is expensive, people are priced out, 150 homes are approved, and the affordable housing is left waiting for a later review.

Cllr Clive Goddard seconded the motion and praised the artist’s impressions as “full of trees, full of greenery, full of hedging”. He said the scheme could be “the flagship of Hythe”. Artist’s impressions are wonderful things. They’re very good at showing sunlight, leaves and lifestyle pedestrians. They’re less good at showing the affordable homes that aren’t there, the woodland that may go, or the engineering works needed to persuade a difficult hillside to behave.

Cllr Rebecca Shoob Cabinet Member for Housing summed up the reluctant-approval position. “We need more affordable homes,” she said, but added that the clawback was “the best we are going to get from this.” That may be the formal planning reality. Politically, it’s a miserable place to land: a district with deep affordable housing need being told its best result is not homes people can afford, but a future spreadsheet if commercial fortunes improve.

The vote then came. Eight councillors backed the officer recommendation, Cllrs Meade, Keen, Lockwood, Hollingsbee, Goddard, Shoob Scoffham & Fuller two voted against Cllrs Jones & Thomas and one abstained Cllr Mike Blakemore. The application passed. Ureco, owned offshore in the Gibraltar tax haven and financed offshore from the Jersey tax haven got its route forward. Residents got conditions. Hythe Town Council got its objections recorded. Affordable housing got a raincheck.

Nobody sensible says the former Foxwood School site should sit empty forever. Dereliction isn’t a housing policy. But redevelopment of a former public site should not mean the public interest is politely ushered out of the room while the viability appraisal keeps its shoes on. When a scheme with £86.7m of projected sales and £17.33m of developer profit says it can’t provide affordable homes at the start, every cost, finance assumption, abnormal item, professional fee and profit allowance deserves forensic scrutiny.

That is the Foxwood story. Not whether the CGI has enough trees. Not whether the footpath looks pleasant. Not whether the bus stop gets improved. The story is that Hythe is being asked to accept up to 150 market homes on a difficult hillside, with no affordable housing up front, because the numbers are said to be too tight. If that’s the planning system working as designed, then the design needs a structural survey of its own.

Seen something the public should know about? Send tips, documents or concerns to TheShepwayVoxTeam(at)proton(dot)me. You can contact us in confidence, speak off the record in the first instance, and help us follow the evidence where it leads.

The Shepway Vox Team

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