The Long Read: Martello Lakes Pool Promise: Where the £5.5m S106 Money Went
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 [...]
Planning
Exclusive: How Otterpool Park’s Places for People Deal Ended in a Claim
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
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
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
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
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)
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
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
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
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
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
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?
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 [...]
Folkestone Harbour’s Second Bite at the Cherry: Revised Development Plans Return to Planning Committee
Folkestone & Hythe District Council Planning Committee will once again consider major redevelopment proposals for the town’s historic harbour area, with a fresh [...]