Investigations

The Pollution They Don’t Measure: Folkestone & Hythe’s PM2.5 Blind Spot From Wood Burners to Otterpool Park

October 8, 2026 // 1 Comment

Folkestone & Hythe District Council can tell residents what nitrogen dioxide was beside a particular road to a tenth of a microgram. What it still cannot tell them is how [...]

£4.135m Apart: Why Folkestone & Hythe Council’s 2025/26 Accounts Won’t Add Up

October 6, 2026 // 0 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s 2025/26 accounts are not final audited accounts. They are still draft, Grant Thornton’s audit opinion is still to come, and [...]

The £9.769m That Doesn’t Add Up in Folkestone & Hythe Council’s Audited Accounts

October 6, 2026 // 0 Comments

There’s a figure in Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s 2024/25 audited accounts that should stop any reader cold. The Group Comprehensive Income and Expenditure [...]

Benefits Fraud Gets the Headlines — Local Government Fraud Is Estimated at £6.7bn

October 5, 2026 // 0 Comments

Benefit fraud gets plenty of attention. But figures in the latest Annual Fraud Indicator show that estimated fraud against local government is running at almost the same [...]

What Lies Beneath Kent? 596 Historic Landfill Sites Mapped — Including 26 Special Waste Sites

October 2, 2026 // 0 Comments

Across Kent and Medway lie hundreds of places once used to dispose of waste — some dating back to an era before modern landfill regulation existed at all. An analysis by [...]

Six Days in A&E: Children Among Mental-Health Patients Stuck in East Kent’s Emergency Departments

October 1, 2026 // 0 Comments

East Kent Hospitals’ own papers reveal one-to-six-day waits, two-hourly executive escalations and a shortage of specialist mental-health beds which the Trust says is not [...]

East Kent Hospitals Maternity: Babies Are Still Dying — Four Years After Kirkup, Known Failures Remain

September 30, 2026 // 1 Comment

Babies have died. East Kent had already been warned. It had already been investigated. It had already been told what was wrong. It had already produced the plans, the [...]

Where Kent & Medway Keep Crashing: 18,400 Collisions, 24,390 Casualties and 252 Deaths Mapped

September 30, 2026 // 1 Comment

Every dot on our map marks a journey in Kent or Medway which ended with somebody being injured. Between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2025, police recorded 18,400 [...]

Kent’s NHS Is Clogged: 500 Patients Can’t Get Out — While Thousands Struggle to Get In

September 30, 2026 // 0 Comments

Getting into the health system is difficult. Getting out of it can be just as difficult. That, in simple terms, is the problem facing Kent and Medway. At one end, patients [...]

Kent NHS’s Escalating Autism and ADHD Crisis: £28.9m Spent, £20m Budgeted and Full Outcomes Still Unknown

September 28, 2026 // 0 Comments

There is a number buried in the latest NHS Kent and Medway Board ICB papers which ought to stop anyone skimming. Spending on autism and ADHD assessment and treatment rose [...]

Grand Burstin Hotel Investigation: Britannia Hotels, Alexander Langsam and the Moravcik Trust

September 27, 2026 // 0 Comments

At 1.06am on Saturday 19 September 2026, Kent Fire and Rescue Service was called to the Grand Burstin Hotel in Folkestone. At the height of the incident, 26 fire engines and [...]

Lower Leas Coastal Park Playground: How a £750,000 Budget Grew to More Than £1.38 Million

September 23, 2026 // 1 Comment

It was supposed to be a £750,000 playground. That was the budget Folkestone & Hythe District Council approved in May 2025 for the long-awaited replacement of the ageing [...]

Sunningdale House Collapse: The Folkestone Land Is Sold, but £13m in Subsidiary Debts Remains

September 21, 2026 // 0 Comments

£378,000 bought the land at Tram Road. It did not buy an end to the Sunningdale story. Buried in the sixth administrators’ progress report for Sunningdale House [...]

Kent Police, Race and Power: When Does Disparity Become Institutional Racism? — Part Three

September 18, 2026 // 1 Comment

Racist misconduct has been proved against Kent Police officers. Black people are arrested at more than twice the White population rate and are substantially overrepresented [...]

£9m Later, the Wait Is Still a Mystery: Folkestone & Hythe’s Disabled Facilities Grants

September 17, 2026 // 0 Comments

In 2018/19, Folkestone & Hythe District Council said there was “currently no waiting list” for its Disabled Facilities Grant scheme. Today, the council tells [...]

Something Changed at Kent Police: Black Arrests Soared 79% in One Year — Part Two

September 16, 2026 // 0 Comments

In Part One, we examined what happened on the streets of Dover, where hundreds of anti-migration protesters descended on the town, dressed in black and wearing balaclavas, [...]

East Kent Health Divide: Four Coastal Constituencies Top Kent for Depression, COPD, Heart Disease and Stroke

September 15, 2026 // 0 Comments

Follow Kent’s coastline from Herne Bay through Thanet and Sandwich, down through Deal and Dover and on towards Folkestone and Hythe. The scenery changes. In the latest [...]

If Intent Is a ‘Fuzzy Line’, How Can FHDC Call It Fraud? Cllr Tim Prater and the £1.266m Question

September 14, 2026 // 1 Comment

When our public face asked Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s Cabinet Member for Finance and Governance how much of £1.266 million was actually fraud, Cllr Tim [...]

Hundreds of White Protesters, Many Masked, Zero Arrests: Kent Police at Dover — Part One

September 14, 2026 // 0 Comments

Part One of a ShepwayVox investigation into race, arrest rates and policing in Kent There’s a question hanging over what happened in Dover on Saturday 5 September 2026 [...]

Kent County Council Paid £27m to Place Children in Unregistered Homes Over Two Years.

September 11, 2026 // 0 Comments

Last month, The Shepway Vox Team revealed how Kent County Council paid Catalyst Care Limited £2,419,480.59 between 2021 and July 2025. Catalyst’s two controlling directors [...]

Kent County Council Register of Interests: Questions Extend Beyond Reform UK

September 8, 2026 // 0 Comments

Byline Times says it’s “not politically partisan” and promises to follow stories “wherever” they go, “without fear or favour”. Yet its investigation into [...]

Part Two: Hodson Developments — From Building Disputes to a £5 Million NHBC Claim

September 3, 2026 // 0 Comments

In Part One, we traced Alan Hodson (pictured) and Hodson Developments from Sunningdale through decades of housebuilding, land acquisition and secured finance. Part Two [...]

Part One: Alan Hodson and Hodson Developments — The Rise of the Property Business Behind Chilmington Green

September 1, 2026 // 0 Comments

This is the first of a three-part investigation into property developer Alan Derek Hodson (pictured), Hodson Developments and associated companies, prompted by the [...]

Allard and Dunlop: Five Liquidations, £705,820 in Creditor Exposure and a Trail of Failed Companies

August 30, 2026 // 1 Comment

Update: 4/09/26 10:05am – See bottom of article. Between October 2016 and March 2026, five companies linked to William Dunlop entered creditors’ voluntary liquidation [...]

Petticoat Lane Emporium Folkestone: ‘No Refund’ Sign, £77,580 Loss and £246,787 Short-Term Creditors

August 30, 2026 // 1 Comment

“Sorry — NO REFUND — ALL SALES FINAL.” That’s the notice facing customers at Petticoat Lane Emporium. The photograph supplied to The Shepway Vox Team shows it [...]

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