Folkestone and Hythe District Council

Otterpool Park: £500m at Stake — and No Meetings on the S106 Financial Package

October 9, 2026 // 0 Comments

There are two numbers worth remembering when looking at Otterpool Park: £250 million and more than £500 million. The first is our best estimate of the potential value of [...]

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 [...]

Cllr David Wimble: A Stranger to the Truth? The False Claims Behind His Immigration Speech

October 8, 2026 // 3 Comments

“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on.” At Folkestone & Hythe District Council full council last night, Cllr David Wimble delivered [...]

Otterpool Park Targets 2028 Start as Homes England’s Hillhurst Farm Is Fast-Tracked for First 300 Homes

October 7, 2026 // 1 Comment

Construction of the first homes at Otterpool Park is now targeted to begin in 2028, with the first 38 homes forecast to be completed the following year. But before a brick [...]

Historic England Says Scrap 291 Homes Beside Hythe’s Royal Military Canal

October 7, 2026 // 0 Comments

Historic England has delivered an unusually blunt warning over Planning Application 26/1290/FH for up to 291 homes at the Hythe Imperial Hotel and golf course beside the [...]

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 [...]

Folkestone & Hythe’s Cost-Cutting Elephant Takes Off — Literally

October 4, 2026 // 0 Comments

A work of satire, inspired and adapted from Sławomir Mrożek’s short story “The Elephant”. The events described below are entirely fictional. It had been six months [...]

110 Homes, Flood Zone 3 and a Field the Local Plan Never Allocated: Inside New Romney’s Cockreed Lane Application

September 25, 2026 // 1 Comment

There’s nothing particularly dramatic about the field north of Cockreed Lane (pictured Orange below). It’s 4.71 hectares of agricultural land on the edge of New Romney: [...]

Storm Goretti Was Lydd’s Warning — Nine Months Later, Its Community Resilience Plan Still Doesn’t Exist

September 24, 2026 // 1 Comment

As autumn closes in and another winter approaches, Lydd, like the rest of us towns and villages, is heading back into the season of strong winds, heavy rain, high seas and [...]

Poor Beaches, Damaged Businesses, No Report: FHDC’s ‘Urgent’ Water Quality Work Goes Nowhere

September 23, 2026 // 0 Comments

On 1 April 2026, Folkestone & Hythe District Council agreed that investigating water quality across Romney Marsh and the East Stour should happen “as a matter of [...]

FHDC Housing Allocations Policy: ‘Fully in Line’ With the Law?

September 22, 2026 // 0 Comments

Tonight, Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s Overview & Scrutiny Committee will be asked to examine a new 78-page Housing Allocations Policy — the rulebook [...]

£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 [...]

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 [...]

Folkestone & Hythe: 155 Children in Temporary Accommodation as Costs Double and Out-of-Area Placements Soar

September 6, 2026 // 0 Comments

The number of children living in temporary accommodation arranged by Folkestone & Hythe District Council has more than doubled in two years. Now, as the Government [...]

Kent LGR Secrecy: FHDC Withholds MoU Figures Under FOI Section 22 — Even Though They’re Already Public

September 1, 2026 // 0 Comments

An FoI request submitted to Folkestone & Hythe District Council on 30 July 2026 asked for the Local Government Reorganisation Implementation Reserve Memorandum of [...]

Folkestone & Hythe Complaints Surge 88% as 60 Residents Demand a Second Answer

August 28, 2026 // 1 Comment

Folkestone & Hythe District Council makes residents a pretty clear promise on its website: “We aim to resolve any complaint at stage one.” Yet in 2025/26, 60 [...]

Hythe Imperial Planning Objection Guide: What Residents Need to Know About GSE’s £120m, 291-Home Plan

August 28, 2026 // 2 Comments

This is a Guest Post After reading The Shepway Vox Team’s examination of planning application 26/1290/FH, I spent a fair bit of time going through the application papers [...]

Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s £1.26m Fraud Report Doesn’t Say How Much Was Fraud — or Error

August 27, 2026 // 1 Comment

There’s a rather important word hiding inside Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s latest £1.26 million fraud figure. “Or.” FHDC says its investigations team [...]

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. [...]

Exclusive: Kent and Medway Councils Agreed £11.9m LGR Fund Before Government Chose Option 4B

August 17, 2026 // 1 Comment

On 16 July 2026, ministers finally settled the future shape of local government in Kent and Medway. Option 4B had won. Four new unitary councils would replace the existing [...]

From Unsafe Homes to a Top-Rated Council Landlord: How the East Kent Housing Scandal Forced Folkestone & Hythe to Rebuild

August 2, 2026 // 1 Comment

Folkestone & Hythe District Council has earned the regulator’s highest consumer grade. It deserves proper credit. But C1 didn’t fall from a clear blue sky. It grew [...]

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