Folkestone

Folkestone Sports Centre Grant: Public Money, Private Asset, Big Questions for FHDC

March 18, 2026 // 2 Comments

On Wednesday 25 March, Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s Cabinet is due to decide whether to award The Sports Trust a £2,421,250 capital grant to reopen the [...]

Leas Pavilion Folkestone: the £20m Claim the Filed Accounts Do Not Support

March 17, 2026 // 3 Comments

For years, Folkestone was sold a dream in glossy renders: restored heritage, luxury flats and a grand old pavilion brought back to life above the Channel. What the town has [...]

Folkestone Affordable Housing: How 14 Homes Were Lost at Stoneleigh House, Tram Road

March 13, 2026 // 1 Comment

An insolvency report, two auction catalogues and one carefully chosen council word tell a bleak story about how Folkestone lost 14 affordable homes and may yet lose the [...]

Leas Pavilion Folkestone: Off-Plan Flat Buyers Left Exposed as Receivers Sell the Freehold

March 3, 2026 // 2 Comments

Folkestone’s stalled Leas Pavilion scheme has spent long enough as a visual punchline: hoardings, silence, and two concrete cores that look less like “luxury living” [...]

Madeira Walk Landslide: Folkestone Leas Playground Cliff Stabilisation Cost Rises to £400,000

February 20, 2026 // 1 Comment

Madeira Walk was shut on 29 February 2024 because the ground above Folkestone’s Lower Leas playground looked as if it might go. Two days later, on 2 March, it did: the [...]

Folkestone Town of Culture 2028 Bid: Come Together, Tell Our Story, Make It Happen

February 17, 2026 // 1 Comment

A £3 million national prize is on the table for the UK’s first Town of Culture in 2028. Folkestone has decided to take a run at it — and, for once, the first step [...]

Saga Sells Acromas Underwriter to Ageas: The 20-Year Insurance Partnership Explained

February 15, 2026 // 2 Comments

For years, Saga has sold insurance under its familiar brand to Britain’s over-50s. But behind the scenes, it was also carrying the most complicated part of the insurance [...]

Hythe Bay Bathing Water Warnings: Sewage Pollution and E. coli from Hythe to Dungeness

February 13, 2026 // 0 Comments

Hythe Bay’s “no swim” problem didn’t start in the 2020s. It has a paper trail that runs from the mid-1970s, through the coliform “fail” tables of the 1980s, into [...]

Folkestone Sports Centre: Cabinet Approves £2.4m Reopening Grant Ahead of Full Council Vote

February 11, 2026 // 0 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s Cabinet has agreed to include a one-off £2.4 million grant aimed at reopening Folkestone Sports Centre and cutting its future [...]

Sunshine Bistro Licence Revoked After Home Office Review Hearing

February 6, 2026 // 0 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe councillors have revoked Sunshine Bistro’s premises licence, ending its authorisation to sell alcohol, after a review brought by the Home Office. [...]

Sunshine Bistro Folkestone: Owner Faces Losing Alcohol Licence Over Illegal Workers

February 6, 2026 // 0 Comments

Council hearing today will decide fate of Sunshine Bistro after immigration enforcement raid uncovered four illegal workers Sunshine cafe, the popular town centre restaurant [...]

Folca 2 in Folkestone: Council Awards £2.4m Refurbishment Contract as Town-Centre Medical Centre Plan Advances

January 28, 2026 // 3 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe District Council has awarded a contract worth £2.42m (excluding VAT) to carry out phase-one refurbishment works at Folca 2 – in purple below [...]

Folkestone Road of Remembrance Landslip: Closure Timeline and Kent County Council’s £5m Stabilisation Plan

January 27, 2026 // 1 Comment

For Folkestone, the Road of Remembrance is not just a convenient cut-through between the harbour area and The Leas. It is also symbolic: a named route tied to the town’s [...]

FOLCA 2 Explained: The NHS Medical Centre Deal, the £13.2m Business Case, and the Tender Trail Behind Folkestone’s Town-Centre Redevelopment

January 20, 2026 // 1 Comment

On Tuesday 27 January, Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s Overview & Scrutiny Committee will look at a draft Cabinet paper that lands formally on the Cabinet [...]

Lidl Folkestone Planning Application 26/0002/FH: Health, Highway Safety and Contamination — The Evidence Behind the Objections

January 16, 2026 // 1 Comment

A planning application is supposed to be a tidy exercise: drawings, reports, consultations, decision. Planning committees like certainty. Communities like clarity. Developers [...]

Folkestone Ship Street Gasworks Housing Plan: “Health Impact” Tick-Box, Toxic Land Risks, and Equality Act Red Flags in a Deprived Coastal Ward

January 12, 2026 // 1 Comment

Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s proposal to transform the derelict former gasworks at Ship Street into 135 homes (planning ref: 25/1316/FH) is now out for public [...]

How Folkestone Library Could Stay at Grace Hill: Three Realistic Plans to Keep the Historic Site Open Without Raising Council Tax Above 3.99%

January 12, 2026 // 1 Comment

Works have started on Kent County Council’s new “town-centre hub” at 14 Sandgate Road — the former Woolworths — combining adult education and Folkestone Library, [...]

Folkestone Library: Grace Hill Sale Looms as KCC Set To Move Service to 14 Sandgate Road (Old Woolworths)

January 9, 2026 // 0 Comments

When Kent County Council finally shut the doors of Folkestone Library’s landmark Grace Hill building in December 2022, it did so on a stark claim: the building had become [...]

The Grand Folkestone: Residents Report Utility Billing Disputes, High Energy Charges and Unresolved Fire Door and Corridor Lighting Concerns

December 16, 2025 // 1 Comment

Residents at The Grand in Folkestone have contacted us with a new set of concerns about day-to-day management of the building — including what they describe as long-running [...]

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