Why KCC’s Folkestone Library Footfall Comparison Is Nonsense: Grace Hill v Sandgate Road

Brian Collins arrived at KCC’s Cabinet meeting brandishing two figures as though he’d just cracked the Enigma code. Grace Hill library received 4,613 visits in June 2022; the new Sandgate Road centre recorded 10,648 in June 2026. That’s 6,035 more visits — a rise of 131%. Collins declared that KCC had made “the right decision”, while leader Linden Kemkaran called the increase “astonishing”. Astonishingly flimsy, perhaps.

The first whopping great hole in this argument is that Sandgate Road opened on 26 May 2026.

June wasn’t a normal month: it was the building’s first full month. There’d been council publicity, speeches, a ribbon-cutting ceremony and invited guests having a butcher’s at the new premises. Using the honeymoon period to prove long-term success is like judging a marriage from the wedding reception because everybody turned up and nobody threw the cake.

Image: Rhys Griffiths

There was also three years’ worth of pent-up demand. KCC itself said the opening restored full library, registration and archive services to Folkestone town centre for the first time in three years. Residents had endured a restricted temporary service after Grace Hill closed in December 2022, one which KCC admitted lacked proper adult and children’s sections and couldn’t provide the experience or resources expected of a fully operating library. Treating the resulting bounce as evidence that KCC’s property decision was unquestionably brilliant is a bit like turning the water back on after three days and boasting that everybody suddenly fancied a bath.

Of course people went through the doors.

Then there’s the awkward question of what the 10,648 actually counts. Sandgate Road isn’t merely a library with a few chairs bunged in the corner. It’s a multi-purpose Library and Community Learning Centre offering adult education, classrooms, events, public computers, local-history services and appointments to register births and deaths. Unless KCC has separated the door traffic by purpose, somebody arriving for an adult-learning course or registration appointment may be helping to inflate what Collins presented as a library triumph. Counting everyone entering the building as a library visitor would be like counting everyone at Folkestone Sports Centre as a weightlifter.

Cabinet wasn’t told how either number was produced. Was it an electronic door counter, a manual tally or something else? Were staff included? Were repeat entries counted? Did somebody popping out for lunch become a brand-new visitor on the way back in? Without a consistent counting method, the figures may look smart from a distance but, up close, they’re wearing a tie with their trousers round their ankles.

Nor did Collins explain why he’d plucked June 2022 from the statistical fruit bowl. Why not June 2019, before the pandemic? Why not Grace Hill’s average monthly attendance over three or five years? Why not compare the final twelve complete months before closure with Sandgate Road’s first twelve? One month against another month four years later isn’t a trend. It’s two dots being asked to impersonate a straight line.

Opening hours matter too. KCC’s website says Sandgate Road opens six days a week, including Wednesdays, with roughly 43 public hours. Yet Cabinet received no comparison with Grace Hill’s June 2022 hours, no visits per opening hour and no adjustment for service availability. Totals without the denominator are council arithmetic’s answer to a three-legged stool: it might stand briefly, but nobody sensible should sit on it.

The historical backdrop makes the chest-beating still sillier. The Shepway Vox Team warned in December 2018 that Grace Hill was already suffering leaks, failed roof repairs and visible disrepair. Four years later, KCC closed it because of water ingress and building conditions; it subsequently estimated basic repairs at about £2.9 million. KCC can’t neglect a building until it’s poorly, point to lower attendance near the end of its life, then claim the sick patient proves the hospital was rubbish.

Shepway Vox was publishing broader library-use evidence back in 2017 and complaining in 2018 that KCC’s own figures hadn’t been updated beyond 2016/17. Proper historical analysis is therefore hardly a newfangled invention requiring NASA and a room full of boffins. KCC could publish several years of visits, loans, memberships, computer sessions, events and running costs. Instead, Cabinet got two numbers waved about like Del Boy presenting a genuine Rolex from a suitcase.

None of this means Sandgate Road’s early performance is bad. More than 10,000 recorded visits in its first full month are encouraging, and residents plainly welcome the return of comprehensive town-centre services. But that proves the building is busy, not that disposing of Folkestone’s Grade II-listed Grace Hill library for £1 was the only sensible choice, the best-value choice or even the cheapest choice over the long term. KCC’s own decision confirmed Sandgate Road only “for the foreseeable future”, with another review expected around late 2028.

Before Collins and Kemkaran take another victory lap, KCC should publish the counting methodology, monthly figures, opening hours, separate library and adult-education traffic, loans, active memberships, operating costs and the full cost per visit at both sites. Until then, their supposedly conclusive comparison isn’t apples and oranges.

Until KCC publishes a genuinely like-for-like comparison, Collins’s victory lap isn’t built on evidence at all, but on a launch-month sugar rush, a hand-picked month from 2022 and a statistical pudding so over-egged it ought to be served with custard.

The Shepway Vox Team

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