Environment

Southern Water Sewage Spills Hit Folkestone and Hythe as Sea-Swimming Health Concerns Grow

August 31, 2026 // 1 Comment

By Claire, guest contributor I’ve got to the point where going anywhere near the sea seems to require three checks before leaving the house: what’s the weather doing, [...]

GSE’s £120m Hythe Imperial Plan: 291 Homes, a 25m Pool — and a Planning File That Doesn’t Quite Add Up

August 26, 2026 // 2 Comments

GSE’s Imperial Gardens scheme promises 291 homes, around 73 “affordable homes”, a new 25m swimming pool and substantial private investment on Hythe seafront. [...]

KCC Scraps £14.5m Junction 11 Waste Transfer Station for Folkestone & Hythe After £722,000 Spend

August 18, 2026 // 1 Comment

Kent County Council is preparing to abandon its planned waste transfer station (marked in orange below) beside Junction 11 of the M20, writing off around £722,000 already [...]

16 People Report E. coli Issues After Sea Swimming at Hythe, Dymchurch and Littlestone

August 17, 2026 // 5 Comments

Something deeply worrying has been landing in The Shepway Vox Team inbox. Between 1 July and 12 August 2026, 16 people contacted us after swimming in the sea at Hythe, [...]

All Kent Rivers Polluted With Toxic Chemicals, Environment Agency Data Shows

August 7, 2026 // 0 Comments

The Environment Agency’s latest assessment has delivered a grim result for Kent: not one classified river stretch passes the chemical-status test. Yet the figures don’t [...]

KCC Pension Fund Holds £38m in Oil, Gas, Coal and Arms Firms, Including Companies Linked to Gaza

August 3, 2026 // 1 Comment

Kent’s pension fund has spent years edging away from some of the world’s dirtiest and deadliest industries. Yet the latest company-level records show the job isn’t [...]

Oaken Wood Quarry Expansion Moves Closer After KCC Backs Plan by Six Votes

July 30, 2026 // 0 Comments

Kent County Council hasn’t approved a quarry extension into Oaken Wood—but by keeping the site in its minerals plan, it has moved that prospect a considerable step [...]

Southern Water Annual Report Errors: Six Admissions, Undisclosed Controls and Unnamed Sewage Permit Failures

July 28, 2026 // 0 Comments

Southern Water has admitted that its 2025/26 reporting contained wrong financial, credit-rating and operational figures. Yet some of its answers create fresh questions about [...]

Southern Water bosses’ pay: bonuses blocked as bills rise and pollution failures continue

July 26, 2026 // 0 Comments

The chief executive and finance director received no annual bonus for the second year running. But Southern Water’s accounts show why the word “bonus” tells only part [...]

Romney Marsh Solar Farms: FHDC Asked for a Cumulative Impact Rule That Already Existed

July 24, 2026 // 0 Comments

A non-lawyer councillor stopped Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s solar motion. Five minutes later, Chief Executive Dr Susan Priest read out the repair — but [...]

South Brooks Solar Farm: FHDC Signals ‘Holding Objection’ Over Romney Marsh Risks

July 23, 2026 // 1 Comment

“It just feels a bit fait accompli.” With those words, Cllr Adrian Lockwood (Lab – pictured) put his finger on the unease running through Folkestone & Hythe [...]

High Court Rules Environment Agency Can Prosecute Former Southern Water Chief Matthew Wright for Conspiracy to Defraud

July 22, 2026 // 0 Comments

A former Southern Water chief executive has failed in a High Court attempt to establish that the Environment Agency had no legal power to prosecute him for conspiracy to [...]

Folkestone and Hythe Council’s Unfulfilled Promise to Investigate Sewage Pollution

July 21, 2026 // 0 Comments

On 1 April, Folkestone & Hythe District Council agreed that possible human faecal contamination across Romney Marsh and the East Stour needed investigating “as a matter [...]

Southern Water 2025/26: Leakage, Pollution and £7bn Debt — Long Read

July 19, 2026 // 0 Comments

Southern Water cut leakage sharply during 2025/26, but still lost almost 90 million litres of treated water every day — enough over the year to fill Bewl Water reservoir [...]

South Brooks Solar Farm: FHDC Officers Raise Concerns Over Heathrow-Sized Romney Marsh Scheme

July 15, 2026 // 0 Comments

Back in May, The Shepway Vox Team wrote that Romney Marsh isn’t empty land beside a handy National Grid socket. It’s a vast, man-made water system held together by [...]

Kent’s Housing Crisis: 47,839 Approved Homes, But Councils Still Fail The Delivery Test

July 8, 2026 // 1 Comment

Kent hasn’t run out of planning permissions. It’s got plenty of paper foundations. The latest Kent housing land supply audit shows 47,839 homes with planning permission [...]

Otterpool Park First Homes: Hillhurst Costs and North Downs Views

June 26, 2026 // 3 Comments

Homes England has bought Hillhurst farmland. The first 300 Otterpool homes are being aimed at sites HF2 and HF3, where the public plans show buildings up to 12–15 metres. [...]

Oliver Davis, Dace Environmental and the £6.68m Creditor Question

June 25, 2026 // 0 Comments

Kent’s new green housing fix is being sold with drone footage, widened ditches and the promise of thousands of homes. But behind the clean-river sales pitch sits a very [...]

Romney Marsh Solar Farms: Full Council to Decide Next Step

June 23, 2026 // 0 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe councillors are being asked to give senior officers faster powers to respond to three giant solar schemes on Romney Marsh — but the petition that [...]

Southern Water Drought Plan Exposes Kent’s Water Supply Crisis

June 22, 2026 // 1 Comment

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water. W. H. Auden Southern Water is telling us to think about drought before we have no choice. Not just hosepipe bans. [...]

West Wood’s Lost Oasis: The Holiday Village That Won Permission and Still Failed

June 16, 2026 // 0 Comments

A private leisure village in a public Kent forest won the planning argument, survived the High Court and still never got built. The reason West Wood survived wasn’t simple. [...]

Update: Otterpool Park Water Plan Faces Climate and Supply Questions

June 15, 2026 // 2 Comments

Otterpool Park is not just a housing scheme. It is an 8,500-home test of whether a seriously water-stressed part of Kent can absorb a new town, a business district, schools, [...]

The Long Read: South Kent Energy Park’s 2,100-Acre Solar Gamble on Romney Marsh

June 14, 2026 // 0 Comments

Low Carbon says its South Kent Energy Park could power the equivalent of 140,000 homes. Its own scoping report also shows a much bigger scheme, on arable Marsh land, much of [...]

The Long Read: KCC Banks Solar Farm Cash as Reform Says No to Romney Marsh Panels

June 14, 2026 // 0 Comments

Reform-led Kent County Council says it wants to protect Kent farmland from excessive solar development. Fair enough. But the council also owns solar farms, including a [...]

New Romney Homes Plan Tests Kent’s Water-Stressed Future

June 12, 2026 // 0 Comments

A proposed 110-home scheme on farmland at New Romney has landed in the middle of Kent’s bigger water argument: how can we keep building in one of the most water-stressed [...]

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