FHDC Councillor Allowances 2026/27: £128k Rise After Change Fails
When Folkestone & Hythe District Council set its 2024/25 budget, councillor allowances were quietly pulled into the political bargaining. Now, in the 2026/27 budget [...]
Folkestone & Hythe District Council
FHDC Budget 2026/27: £6m Hythe Pool Spend, Grant Cliff-Edges and Hidden Costs for Residents
Folkestone and Hythe District Council (FHDC) is proposing a budget that pours millions into leisure facilities – including a £6 million refurbishment of Hythe Swimming [...]
Why Benefit Fraud Makes Headlines — and Council Insider Fraud Rarely Does
A familiar story did the rounds in the run-up to Christmas: a benefits claimant exposed by covert video, prosecuted, and written up in a way that leaves little doubt about [...]
Otterpool Park’s 1001-Day Section 106 Delay Exposes England’s Planning Logjam
On 4 April 2023, Folkestone & Hythe’s Planning and Licensing Committee resolved to grant outline planning permission for Otterpool Park—a new garden town proposed at [...]
Folkestone & Hythe DC Funding 2025/26–2028/29: Core Spending Power, Council Tax and the Real Squeeze
On 17 December 2025, Government published the provisional Local Government Finance Settlement for 2026/27 to 2028/29 (a three-year settlement, with later years still subject [...]
Draft NPPF 2025 Explained: What’s Changed Since 2024 and What It Means for Planning Decisions, Housing Numbers and the Green Belt
Yes — we know you love it. We know you wanted it under the Christmas tree. And the Government, in the spirit of festive excess, has delivered: a brand-new Draft National [...]
Wood-Burner Boom in Folkestone & Hythe District: 1,356 Recorded Installs — and the Council’s Blind Spot
An Environmental Information request has forced Folkestone & Hythe District Council to put hard numbers on something residents have been arguing about for years: how fast [...]
Otterpool Park: More Than £76m Spent, 0 Homes Built — Ten Years After Folkestone & Hythe’s Garden Town Land Buy
More than £38,967,500 has been spent assembling land and property for Otterpool Park (according to the Land Registry and the council’s asset-register spreadsheet). Add [...]
Princes Parade Write-Off and Oportunitas Valuation Error: Audit Scrutiny Intensifies as Folkestone & Hythe Audit & Governance Meeting Is Postponed
Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s Audit & Governance Committee was due to meet tomorrow evening (Wednesday 17 December, 6pm) to scrutinise the 2024/25 Statement [...]
Freemasons in Local Government: How Secret Membership and £5bn Procurement Fraud Risk Are Undermining Trust in UK Councils
The government’s own anti-corruption documents and fraud figures leave little doubt: local government is now a frontline battleground against fraud and corruption – and [...]
Folkestone & Hythe Developer Contributions: CIL & Section 106 Millions, Missing Data, and Infrastructure Funding Statement Compliance Failures (2020–2025)
Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s Infrastructure Funding Statement (IFS) is meant to be the public’s annual “receipt and report card” for developer [...]
Folkestone & Hythe District Council Procurement Cards: DVLA, Amazon, Hospitality and Vouchers Exposed in 2022–2025 Spend Data
For more than a decade, procurement cards have been sold to the public as a simple idea: a controlled payment card for low-value goods and services, intended to cut paperwork [...]
Green cabinet member Stephen Scoffham’s clean-air blind spot in Folkestone & Hythe: no PM2.5/PM10 monitoring, no Smoke Control Areas
A familiar winter scene in Folkestone & Hythe is the smell of smoke hanging in the still air — sometimes cosy, sometimes cloying, sometimes downright intrusive. [...]
Why Folkestone & Hythe Backed the East Kent Unitary ‘Option 3A’ – Democracy, Devolution and the District’s Future Explained
The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything. Oscar Wilde Folkestone & Hythe District Council has formally backed the [...]
Otterpool Park Exposed: How Folkestone & Hythe’s 10,000-Home ‘Garden Town’ Is Spending Millions Without Planning Permission
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
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
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 [...]
Belgian Developer Hendrik Danneels: Criminal Tax-Fraud and Money-Laundering Case Shadowing Mylecke NV and the Insolvent Leas Pavilion Development in Folkestone
For years, Belgian property developer Hendrik Danneels (pictured) has preferred to operate in the shadows. Belgian business press portrays him as a low-profile coastal [...]
Folkestone & Hythe DC’s parking charges: five years of steep rises, a seafront summer premium, and 2026/27 proposals under scrutiny
Folkestone & Hythe’s District Council’s discretionary parking charges have been ratcheted up across four agreed budgets (2022/23–2025/26) and one set of [...]
Folkestone & Hythe discretionary fees up; bereavement leads, court costs frozen
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” — Oscar Wilde Over five budgets from 2022/23 to the proposed 2026/27 schedule, [...]
Otterpool Park Update: FHDC and Homes England extend partnership
Updated 12:30 – 7 Nov 2025 Folkestone & Hythe is trying to turn a long-promised green light into a legal permission. With the six-month Collaboration Agreement [...]
The Air We Don’t Measure: Folkestone & Hythe’s DCs PM2.5 Blind Spot and Wood-Burner Pollution
The council’s latest Air-Quality Report 2025 measures nitrogen dioxide to the decimal point — but sidesteps the particles most linked to early deaths. Meanwhile, Hythe is [...]
Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s Ward Budgets: £43k Gap in Council Report
Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s draft Equality & Diversity report 2024-25, to go before Cabinet on the 12 Novemeber, claims £83,000 in ward grants supporting [...]
Folkestone & Hythe s106 Breach at Sandgate Pavilions: Stoneleigh House Link Not Secured—14 Affordable Homes Lost
On 3 May 2016, Folkestone & Hythe’s Tory controlled Planning Committee approved Sandgate Pavilions (owned by a David Pownceby Company) (Y15/1154/SH) subject to a [...]
Stoneleigh House and the £1.716m Question: Where Did the Affordable Homes Go?
Updated: 09:35 on 3 Nov 2025 A fire-damaged Stoneleigh House on Tram Road, Folkestone, goes to auction this month with its 2018 consent for 14 affordable flats long since [...]