Finances

Princes Parade Write-Off and Oportunitas Valuation Error: Audit Scrutiny Intensifies as Folkestone & Hythe Audit & Governance Meeting Is Postponed

December 16, 2025 // 0 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s Audit & Governance Committee was due to meet tomorrow evening (Wednesday 17 December, 6pm) to scrutinise the 2024/25 Statement [...]

Oportunitas: 11 Years In — Paper Profits, Still No Taxpayer Return – A Shepway Vox Team Investigation

December 2, 2025 // 0 Comments

Oportunitas Ltd a company wholly owned by Folkestone & Hythe District Council has never made a true profit for the council taxpayer since its incorporation in 2014. In [...]

Mark Quinn: Quinn Estates’ Power, Philanthropy — and the Quinn Investments Accounts Behind Kent’s Biggest Developments

November 28, 2025 // 1 Comment

For most people in east Kent, the name “Mark Quinn” means big housing schemes, glossy CGI images and often fierce planning rows. Less visible is the quiet holding company [...]

Hythe Imperial Hotel, GSE Group and the Healey–Bowles Empire: Inside Kent’s Construction, Property and Truckstop Network. A Shepway Vox Investigation

November 27, 2025 // 0 Comments

When you walk along Hythe seafront, the Hythe Imperial Hotel & Spa looms over the promenade – a refurbished Victorian pile now marketed as a luxury coastal retreat. [...]

Otterpool Park Update: Millions Budgeted While Outline Permission Still Unissued; Homes England Recognises ‘Market Failure’ as 31 Dec 2026 Long-Stop Nears

November 26, 2025 // 3 Comments

By any normal measure, a council that “resolved to grant” outline planning permission, in April 2023, for a new settlement of this scale (8,500 homes) would be sprinting [...]

Kent Council Debt 2024–25: Full Borrowing Breakdown for Kent County, Medway and Every District

November 24, 2025 // 1 Comment

Across Kent and Medway, council debt has not stood still over the past financial year. Between 31 December 2024 (Q3) and 30 September 2025 (Q2), total borrowing by the 14 [...]

Part 3:Roger De Haan Charitable Trust: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Folkestone’s Million-Pound Philanthropy – A ShepwayVox Investigation

November 23, 2025 // 0 Comments

The Roger De Haan Charitable Trust (RDHT) – charity no. 276274 – is a family-run grant‐making foundation focused on Folkestone and south-east Kent. Its stated [...]

Part 2: Creative Folkestone’s charity arm accounts (2019–2024): A Shepway Vox Investigation

November 21, 2025 // 1 Comment

Creative Folkestone, the visionary arts charity at the heart of this seaside town’s cultural revival, has ridden a rollercoaster of fortunes over the past five financial [...]

Kent County Council Budget Overspend at Half-Time: Reform UK Era Faces Adult Social Care Crisis

November 19, 2025 // 0 Comments

Half-way through the 2025–26 financial year, the scoreboard at County Hall does not make pretty reading. Against a net revenue budget of £1.53 billion, Kent County Council [...]

Otterpool Park Exposed: How Folkestone & Hythe’s 10,000-Home ‘Garden Town’ Is Spending Millions Without Planning Permission

November 18, 2025 // 3 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe District Council is gearing up for yet another intense round of work on Otterpool Park – still without an actual planning permission in place, more [...]

Folkestone & Hythe Council Housing: Strong Budget, Slow New Homes

November 18, 2025 // 0 Comments

By any normal measure, Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s Housing Revenue Account (HRA) is being run cautiously. At the halfway point of 2025/26, the latest [...]

Folkestone & Hythe District Council Budget Half-Time Score: Council Tax, Reserves and Capital Borrowing Explained

November 17, 2025 // 0 Comments

Six months after councillors approved this year’s budget on 26 February 2025, new second-quarter (Q2) monitoring reports show a familiar picture at Folkestone & Hythe [...]

Kent County Council audit: clean opinion, deep financial risks

October 23, 2025 // 0 Comments

Kent audit signs off the Tories’ final year — but warns of structural risks the new Reform UK leadership must now tackle Grant Thornton will issue an unqualified opinion [...]

Folkestone & Hythe District Council Budget 2026/27: Council Tax Rises, Services, and Risks

October 15, 2025 // 1 Comment

Folkestone & Hythe District Council published its 2025/26 Budget Strategy last December and its 2026/27 Budget Strategy this October. Read together, they show a Council [...]

Folkestone & Hythe District Council Expenses: Missing Receipts and Audit Rights

September 29, 2025 // 0 Comments

In a plot twist nobody saw coming (except literally everyone), a diligent resident exercised their lawful right to look at how Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s top [...]

Folkestone & Hythe District Council Performance: Waste, Housing, Planning—What to Know

September 22, 2025 // 0 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe’s Q1 performance, 2024/25 vs 2025/26: where the council’s flying, where it’s flagging, and where the lid’s still stuck on the recycling bin. If [...]

Grant Thornton Audit Fees Tripled Across 12 Kent Councils

September 11, 2025 // 0 Comments

Kent’s 12 district councils are grappling with a dramatic rise in the cost of their annual audits, as new data reveals fees tripled between 2022/23 and 2023/24. The [...]

Folkestone & Hythe District Council Withhold Audit Records, Breaching Public Inspection Rights

August 18, 2025 // 0 Comments

One week after the statutory 30-working‑day inspection period closed (1 July–12 August 2025), residents report that Folkestone & Hythe District Council (FHDC) has [...]

“Buy Local” Tony Vaughan MP Spends £346 on Non-Local Plants — Some Imported from China

August 12, 2025 // 1 Comment

When Tony Vaughan KC MP for Folkestone & Hythe (pictured) penned his 24 July 2025 column, Buying Local is the Bedrock of Community, it was an unambiguous call to arms. [...]

Kent County Council Still Rents £60k Brussels Office Under Reform UK as £140m Cuts Loom

August 11, 2025 // 3 Comments

Kent County Council (KCC) is facing renewed criticism after it emerged the authority continues to rent office space in Brussels – nearly five years after the UK formally [...]

Folkestone & Hythe District Council Spent £3.1 Million Outside Contract Rules, Records Reveal

August 6, 2025 // 2 Comments

Calls are mounting for Grant Thornton the external auditors to intervene at Folkestone & Hythe District Council, after new evidence emerged of more than £3.1 million in [...]

Folkestone & Hythe District Council Under Fire: Nearly £500,000 in Unexplained Payments Exposed Amid ‘Highest Standards’ Claim

August 4, 2025 // 4 Comments

The rot at the heart of Folkestone & Hythe District Council (FHDC) is no longer a matter of opinion—it is now demonstrably a pattern. What began as seven questionable [...]

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