Folkestone & Hythe District Council Spent Less, Delivered Less, But Borrowed More

Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s capital programme ended 2025/26 with a headline underspend of £3.649m, but that doesn’t mean the council simply saved money. The programme started the year with an original General Fund capital budget of £31.375. By February, the latest approved budget had been cut or reprofiled to £19.873m. By year end, the council had actually spent £16.224m. So the clean picture for readers is this: the programme shrank before the final outturn, then still came in below that reduced February figure.

Capital spending is money spent on things meant to last: buildings, land, sea defences, major IT systems, play areas and big equipment. It isn’t the same as the day-to-day money used to run services. “Outturn” just means what actually happened by the end of the financial year. A “variance” is the gap between budget and actual spend. A minus figure means less was spent than planned; a plus figure means more was spent. On paper, FHDC underspent. In practice, the detail shows a programme where a lot of work simply moved into another year.

The council’s own Appendix 2 explains the £3.649m movement. There was £4.910m of “reprofiling”, which is the polite council word for pushing planned spending into 2026/27. That was partly offset by £1.919m of overspends. There were also £658k of genuine underspends or released budgets. Put the three together and they reconcile to the net £3.649m underspend. That matters because delay isn’t the same thing as saving money.

Let’s look at the Folkestone: A Brighter Future, the Levelling Up Fund programme. Its latest approved 2025/26 budget was £9m, but the outturn was £6.527m, leaving £2.473m moved on. The dashboard says the total project budget is £20.4m, spend to date is £9.413m, and the project is 45% complete. That means the largest project on the dashboard is not recorded as bust, but it’s also nowhere near finished. Residents looking at the town centre will understand that difference perfectly well.

FOLCA 2 is the sharpest example of the gap between a green budget signal and real-world delivery. The latest approved 2025/26 budget was £1m. The council spent £52k. The remaining £948k was carried forward. The dashboard gives FOLCA 2 a total project budget of £12m, total spend to date of £52k, 0.4% of budget spent and 1% project completion. A green tick beside a project that’s 1% complete may be technically correct as a budget marker, but it isn’t much use as plain-English transparency.

Otterpool is where the accounting gets more uncomfortable. “Otterpool Further Investment” underspent by £520k because the second collaboration agreement took longer than expected. But “Land at Otterpool Lane” overspent by £1.460m. The council says £1.4m of interest costs were capitalised for borrowing taken out to purchase the land. Capitalised interest means interest that might otherwise hit the day-to-day budget is added to the capital cost of the project while the asset isn’t ready for use. It may be allowed, but it isn’t magic money. It’s still borrowing cost.

Changing Tides Coastal Centre is complete, but over budget. The latest approved 2025/26 budget was £1.315m and the outturn was £1.358m, a £43k overspend. The dashboard shows a total project budget of £1.733m and total project spend to date of £1.738m. That is 102% of the total project budget spent. It’s the only project on the dashboard marked as overspent. In cash terms it isn’t the biggest issue in this report, but it is a completed scheme over its stated budget.

The leisure centre line tells a different story again. The latest approved budget was £400k and the council spent only £10k. The remaining £390k is being released because a RIBA stage one feasibility assessment has been completed and further design work is expected to move into the Hythe Pool capital budget. RIBA stages are simply the recognised steps used to design and develop building projects. So, in normal language, the council did some early design work, then shifted the next stage into a different, more specific pot.

The sting is borrowing. February’s latest funding summary assumed £3.930m of borrowing for the 2025/26 programme. The outturn requires £5.012m. That is £1.082m more borrowing despite lower overall capital spend. The report says the borrowing-funded spend was £4.100m for Otterpool Park, £762k for Changing Tides and £150k for waste vehicles. So the simple reader-friendly line is this: FHDC delivered less capital work than planned, but still needed more borrowing than the February plan assumed.

Capital receipts also deserve a plain-English explanation. These are proceeds from selling council assets, such as land or buildings. They’re not normal income like council tax. Appendix 3 shows £11.818m brought forward, £4.965m received in 2025/26, and £1.989m left uncommitted for new General Fund capital spending at 31 March 2026. Think of it as selling things from the family silver drawer: useful cash, but once the asset’s gone, it’s gone.

There are also small consistency and drafting issues councillors should press on. The report summary shows Regulatory and Community Services with a £2k underspend, while Appendix 1 shows £3k. That may be rounding, but it’s still not identical. The report also says a remaining capital receipts balance will be carried forward to 2025/26, even though the paper is already reporting the 2025/26 outturn; that appears to mean 2026/27. A similar wording problem appears around resources for slippage and reprofiling “to 2025/26”, when the context points to 2026/27. These are not the largest financial issues, but clean financial reporting reports should be clean & sanity checked.

The council says it remains on track to deliver schemes within its approved Medium Term Capital Programme. That may be true across the rolling five-year spreadsheet. But residents don’t live in a five-year spreadsheet. In 2025/26, FOLCA 2 barely moved, the Levelling Up Fund programme slipped, leisure centre money was largely released, The Leas infrastructure work didn’t start, and borrowing rose above the February assumption. The forensic bottom line is simple enough: FHDC spent less, delivered less, and borrowed more.

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The Shepway Vox Team

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