Folkestone

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 [...]

Bailiffs Return to The Grand Folkestone: £20,490 Unpaid CCJ Raises Fresh Service Charge Fears for Leaseholders

December 12, 2025 // 1 Comment

Bailiffs were reported at The Grand in Folkestone again on Monday 8 December, in what residents say was another confrontation over unpaid electricity linked to flats — a [...]

KCC Leaders Meet Sir Roger De Haan in Folkestone: What’s on the Public Record?

December 10, 2025 // 1 Comment

A set of photographs posted online by Cllr John Baker (Reform UK, Kent County Council) shows a small delegation meeting in Folkestone with Sir Roger De Haan, followed by what [...]

Affinity Water: Executive Pay, Leaks, Outages and Emissions — What the Company’s Own Accounts Reveal (2018–2025)

December 4, 2025 // 0 Comments

Affinity Water has had a turbulent seven years. Executive pay and shareholder rewards have at times raced ahead of progress on leaks and service, and its environmental record [...]

Part 2: Creative Folkestone’s charity arm accounts (2019–2024): A Shepway Vox Investigation

November 21, 2025 // 1 Comment

Creative Folkestone, the visionary arts charity at the heart of this seaside town’s cultural revival, has ridden a rollercoaster of fortunes over the past five financial [...]

Part 1: Creative Folkestone Company Accounts 2019–2024: A Shepway Vox Investigation

November 20, 2025 // 0 Comments

The Shepway Vox Team is launching a three-part investigation into the money behind Folkestone’s cultural renaissance. In Parts 1 and 2 we will examine the finances of [...]

Creative Folkestone Tenancy Agreement: ‘Creative Connection’ and Gagging Clauses Under UK Renter and Consumer Law

November 19, 2025 // 6 Comments

Creative Folkestone describes itself as “an arts charity with a bold ambition: to make Folkestone a better place to live, work and visit through creativity.” In the [...]

Belgian Developer Hendrik Danneels: Criminal Tax-Fraud and Money-Laundering Case Shadowing Mylecke NV and the Insolvent Leas Pavilion Development in Folkestone

November 14, 2025 // 0 Comments

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 [...]

Leas Pavilion Developer Insolvency: How Offshore Owner Mylecke NV Left Folkestone with Eyesore Towers and Broken Promises

November 14, 2025 // 2 Comments

For 18 months the two stark concrete towers on Folkestone’s Leas have stood frozen – an unfinished gateway to a luxury apartment scheme that never arrived. In early [...]

Why Folkestone Academy’s EHE Rate Is Triple the Kent Average

November 10, 2025 // 0 Comments

In a single year, 58 pupils left Folkestone Academy for Elective Home Education—6.6% of the school’s roll and more than three times the Kent secondary average. The [...]

Folkestone & Hythe War Memorials & Roll of Honour: Remembering All Who Fell on Land, Sea and Air

November 8, 2025 // 0 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe’s roll of honour stretches from village greens to the cliff-top memorials that face France. On The Leas, the Folkestone War Memorial carries around [...]

Folkestone & Hythe s106 Breach at Sandgate Pavilions: Stoneleigh House Link Not Secured—14 Affordable Homes Lost

November 4, 2025 // 1 Comment

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 [...]

Folkestone Harbour: Deprivation Endures Despite Regeneration

October 31, 2025 // 2 Comments

Folkestone’s waterfront has been remade with panache: the derelict Harbour Arm became a promenade of bars and food stalls; a boardwalk curls along the beach; the first [...]

Lidl Folkestone Plan Faces Mixed Reaction and Ownership Questions

October 14, 2025 // 2 Comments

Discount supermarket Lidl has unveiled proposals to relocate its Folkestone town-centre store (in Shellons Street – which has long been planned to become the new bus [...]

Are Folkestone’s Bus Stops Breaching the Equality Act 2010?

September 29, 2025 // 0 Comments

The closure of Folkestone’s 70-year-old bus station and the hurried switch to temporary roadside stops in Middelburg Square has sparked anger from elderly and disabled [...]

Napier Barracks Explained: Facts, Rights and Local Impact

September 26, 2025 // 2 Comments

Five years after a Facebook post published by our public face first warned Folkestone that Napier Barracks would be used to house asylum seekers, the story is still unfolding [...]

Folkestone Bus Station Closes After 70 Years (1955–2025) as Services Move to Middelburg Square

September 17, 2025 // 0 Comments

Folkestone’s town-centre bus station will close after service on Saturday 20 September, with services switching to temporary stops along Middelburg Square from Sunday 21 [...]

Creative Businesses in Kent: Folkestone & Hythe Falls Behind

September 16, 2025 // 0 Comments

New Kent County Council figures for 2024 paint a clear picture of the county’s creative-sector footprint. Kent as a whole had 6,195 “creative” businesses – only 9.6% [...]

Highview Folkestone £800k sale — Did Leo Griggs get it cheap?

September 15, 2025 // 2 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe District Council has sold the former Highview School site on Moat Farm Road for £800,000, despite the land being marketed last year at up to £1.895 [...]

Highview Folkestone: Listed at £1.895m, Sold by Council for £800k

September 12, 2025 // 0 Comments

Highview School in Folkestone was closed in 2016 as part of a merger that created a new special education facility, The Beacon. The following year, Kent County Council (KCC) [...]

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