Folkestone & Hythe District Council

East Kent Sewage Pollution: Southern Water, Five Councils and the Statutory Nuisance Law

March 3, 2026 // 2 Comments

We’re The Shepway Vox Team, and over the past few weeks we’ve watched the same pattern play out again and again. Residents complain that sewage-contaminated discharges [...]

Folkestone & Hythe Customer Access Strategy: Digital by Choice or Digital Exclusion?

February 27, 2026 // 1 Comment

Folkestone & Hythe District Council has approved a new Customer Access Strategy 2026 -29, built around a simple promise: residents should be able to access council [...]

FHDC Homelessness Spending: Temporary Accommodation Costs Soar as Prevention Fund and Private Sector Offer Payments Rise

February 26, 2026 // 0 Comments

If you want to understand the housing pressure in Folkestone & Hythe, start with the bit that hurts: the emergency bill. Between April 2025 and January 2026, Folkestone [...]

Folkestone & Hythe Council Budget: Council Tax Rise, Reserves Drawdown and Debt Repayment Shake-Up

February 26, 2026 // 0 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s budget debate yesterday evening didn’t hinge on a big, obvious “cuts list”. It hinged on something far less [...]

Folkestone & Hythe’s Risborough Barracks Deal: Taylor Wimpey Payments Revealed as Temporary Accommodation Costs Soar

February 25, 2026 // 1 Comment

Folkestone & Hythe District Council has so far paid Taylor Wimpey £2,390,013.56 towards the Risborough Barracks affordable homes scheme, based on supplier payment data [...]

Mandatory DBS Checks for District and Parish Councillors: The Russell Tillson Case

February 24, 2026 // 2 Comments

In the long shadow of the “Epstein files” debate — where public trust has again been tested by questions about powerful men, elite networks and who knew what — the [...]

Folkestone & Hythe’s Emissions and Biodiversity Record Was Built Under Conservative Leadership

February 24, 2026 // 0 Comments

A new Folkestone & Hythe District Council scrutiny report gives a detailed picture of carbon emissions and biodiversity policy. It also raises an important point of [...]

Folkestone & Hythe District Council: Councillors Challenge Youth Football Fees, Hythe Pool Spend, Princes Parade Delay and Southern Water

February 23, 2026 // 2 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe District Council meets in Full Council on Wednesday 25 February at 7pm, and councillors have published a set of questions that range from the price of [...]

Folkestone & Hythe District Council: Cash Withdrawals on Purchase Cards, Weak Evidence, No Questions Asked

February 23, 2026 // 0 Comments

A routine internal audit update to Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s Audit and Governance Committee has surfaced an awkward line that deserves far more daylight [...]

Southern Water Legal Action: Folkestone & Hythe District Council Escalate Sewage Pollution Fight

February 22, 2026 // 2 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe District Council, Southern Water and the Environment Agency faced residents and campaigners in the same room on Thursday 19 February, to discuss sewage [...]

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 [...]

FHDC Budget 2026/27: Paying £63,000 a Year for Empty, Unlettable Otterpool Homes

February 19, 2026 // 2 Comments

The council’s budget papers for 2026/27 admit it is now paying ongoing costs on four Otterpool properties sitting empty, “not fit to be let”, while housing pressures [...]

Folkestone & Hythe District Council Budget 2026/27: Council Tax, Reserves and Debt

February 18, 2026 // 0 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s 2026/27 budget (item 12) goes to Full Council on Wednesday 25 February with a headline most residents will miss, because it [...]

Folkestone & Hythe Housing Register: The Five-Bedroom “Ghost Queue” Trapping 11 Families

February 18, 2026 // 0 Comments

This is a Guest Post On the Folkestone & Hythe District Council housing register there is a category that, on paper, looks normal. In practice it behaves like a dead end. [...]

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 [...]

Folkestone & Hythe Council Fees: Prices Up Since 2019 — Are You Paying More Than Inflation?

February 17, 2026 // 0 Comments

Most people never read a council’s fees and charges appendices unless they absolutely have to. You only encounter them at awkward, very human moments: when you need a copy [...]

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 [...]

Controlled Parking Zones: What FHDC Must Fix Before Adopting Its CPZ Policy

February 12, 2026 // 3 Comments

Controlled Parking Zones are arguments over a finite resource: a few metres of kerb outside your home or shop. From Snargate to Sellindge, Lydd to Lyminge where streets can [...]

FOLCA Folkestone: FOLCA 1 Saved for Retail-and-Flats, Sale Funds FOLCA 2 Medical Centre

February 11, 2026 // 1 Comment

Folkestone’s long-stalled FOLCA project has entered its most consequential phase yet: FOLCA 1 is being sold, FOLCA 2 is being refurbished, and councillors are now publicly [...]

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 [...]

Temporary Accommodation Costs Hit Record High at Folkestone & Hythe District Council, Passing £1m

February 6, 2026 // 0 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s spending on temporary accommodation has now crossed £1,052,870 in the current financial year, according to the council’s [...]

Folkestone Sports Centre Trust: From £150,000 Council Grant to Administration — What the Sale Price Reveals

February 6, 2026 // 1 Comment

Folkestone Sports Centre didn’t die because it had nothing. It died because it had no money where it mattered: in the bank. That is the central message running through the [...]

Folkestone & Hythe ‘Stretches the Mortgage’ on £192m Debt: MRP Savings Now, Higher Bills Later

February 5, 2026 // 0 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe District Council (FHDC) is proposing a change that makes its finances look dramatically healthier on paper — not by paying down debt, but by changing [...]

Folkestone & Hythe Council Tax: The Numbers Were Blacked Out — the Bill Wasn’t

February 4, 2026 // 1 Comment

There’s a familiar annual trick in local government: lead with the smallest number you control, then hope nobody asks about the rest. This year, Folkestone & Hythe [...]

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	Bob on Grand Burstin Fire: How Hundre…
	Simon on Grand Burstin Fire: How Hundre…
	Stephen on Lower Leas Coastal Park Playgr…
	Kay on Four Fingers, One Passport and…