Planning

Update: Otterpool Park Next Steps: Hillhurst Farm Land Questions Loom Over Public Exhibition

June 17, 2026 // 0 Comments

The next Otterpool Park exhibition isn’t just another afternoon of glossy boards, polite smiles and “your views matter” stationery. It’s the point where the proposed [...]

The Long Read: Martello Lakes Pool Promise: Where the £5.5m S106 Money Went

May 24, 2026 // 0 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe’s own papers show the Martello Lakes swimming pool dream has vanished. The money has gone elsewhere, the land decision is still coming, and the [...]

Exclusive: How Otterpool Park’s Places for People Deal Ended in a Claim

April 16, 2026 // 0 Comments

David Monk’s Otterpool strategy was built on a simple commercial idea: service the land, parcel it up and sell it on. By 2023, Places for People had emerged in public as [...]

Sandbanks Littlestone Development: Ownership, Planning and Company Questions

March 27, 2026 // 0 Comments

We have written about Sandbanks before. Back in 2021 the questions were about planning, ownership and who was really driving the scheme. Five years on, the former care home [...]

New Beach Holiday Village: Jersey Ownership and US Governance Questions Behind Dymchurch Plan

March 15, 2026 // 0 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe District Council has approved planning application 25/2297/FH for New Beach Holiday Village in Dymchurch as a greener, smarter revamp. But behind the [...]

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 [...]

Folkestone & Hythe Planning Committee Faces Whitehall Power Grab

March 11, 2026 // 4 Comments

If you want to understand where power is drifting in local planning, do not just watch the next controversial application land on Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s [...]

Romney Marsh Solar Farm Approved 8–4: What Folkestone & Hythe Councillors Were Told, What the Papers Contradict, and What Happens Next (25/0542/FH)

January 21, 2026 // 1 Comment

Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s Planning and Licensing Committee has approved planning application 25/0542/FH for a 40-hectare (98.8-acre) solar farm on land [...]

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 [...]

Otterpool Park’s 1001-Day Section 106 Delay Exposes England’s Planning Logjam

December 30, 2025 // 0 Comments

On 4 April 2023, Folkestone & Hythe’s Planning and Licensing Committee resolved to grant outline planning permission for Otterpool Park—a new garden town proposed at [...]

Draft NPPF 2025 Explained: What’s Changed Since 2024 and What It Means for Planning Decisions, Housing Numbers and the Green Belt

December 24, 2025 // 0 Comments

Yes — we know you love it. We know you wanted it under the Christmas tree. And the Government, in the spirit of festive excess, has delivered: a brand-new Draft National [...]

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 [...]

Stoneleigh House and the £1.716m Question: Where Did the Affordable Homes Go?

November 3, 2025 // 0 Comments

Updated: 09:35 on 3 Nov 2025 A fire-damaged Stoneleigh House on Tram Road, Folkestone, goes to auction this month with its 2018 consent for 14 affordable flats long since [...]

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 [...]

Folkestone & Hythe Planning Appeals: Costs, Rules & Success Rates

September 30, 2025 // 0 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe District Council is facing a wave of planning appeals against its decisions. Appeals arise when a developer or resident formally contests a refused [...]

Elmtree Farm, Sellindge: FHDC Approves 105 Homes from Quinn Homes

September 11, 2025 // 1 Comment

Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s Planning Committee has given the green light – unanimously, no less – to an outline proposal for 105 new homes in Sellindge. [...]

Ship Street Folkestone: 70 Years of Dereliction Ends as Council Pushes Ahead with 135-Home Gasworks Redevelopment

September 11, 2025 // 0 Comments

After lying derelict for decades, the former gasworks off Ship Street is finally inching toward a new life. Folkestone & Hythe District Council has submitted an outline [...]

UK Human Rights Act and ECHR Explained: Right to Life, Law and Planning

August 29, 2025 // 0 Comments

Seventy-five years after Britain helped write the post-war rules that keep tyranny out, voices within the Conservatives and Reform UK are now toying with watering down or [...]

Folkestone & Hythe Residents Urged to Join Community Panel Shaping New Design Code for Future Developments

August 16, 2025 // 0 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe District Council is seeking residents to join a new community panel tasked with contributing to the development of the district’s first formal design [...]

Methane and CO₂ Emissions at Princes Parade Clash with Council’s Climate Commitments

July 5, 2025 // 1 Comment

Updated 09:30, 7 July 2025 The future of Princes Parade—a contentious strip of coastal land owned by Folkestone & Hythe District Council—has resurfaced as a [...]

Section 106 Disaster in Folkestone: £1.7 Million Missing, No Affordable Homes Delivered

July 3, 2025 // 2 Comments

Fourteen affordable homes promised. £1.716 million pledged in Section 106 contributions. Not a brick laid, not a pound received. Instead, Stoneleigh House and its adjoining [...]

Folkestone & Hythe District Council Fails to Spend £11.88 Million on Promised Projects

June 29, 2025 // 1 Comment

Folkestone & Hythe District Council has left £11.88 million of budgeted capital spending unspent over the past two financial years. This money was earmarked for [...]

Folkestone Harbour Development Approved Despite Legal Failures on Equality Law

June 17, 2025 // 5 Comments

Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s planning committee has approved the major seafront development—without a single councillor raising, mentioning, or addressing [...]

Folkestone & Hythe District Council Wastes £26K Fighting Three Flats in Cheriton – and Loses in Court

June 16, 2025 // 5 Comments

In a saga that began with a modest plan to replace derelict garages at The Old Laundry, Bowen Rd, Cheriton, Folkestone & Hythe District Council (FHDC) has now found [...]

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