The views here are personal to the current chairman Richard Wallace, who is retiring this year but remaining on committee and pushing the Go Folkestone small electricals recycling stall expected soon on Saturday mornings outside Folca. Probably we will be in easy two hour shifts from 9.30am to 1.30pm.
The Committee is willing to accept a location provisionally offered by the Folkestone and Hythe District Council in Forester’s Way for 2 wheelie bins for electrical recycling awaiting collections. Safeguards and conditions will be kept under review, but CCTV is not deemed essential. This is provided the bins are properly secured, mobile phones are bagged elsewhere, and the insurance is maintained.
We are also accepting on principle, a location offered for volunteer collection at a stall, analogous to a market stall near Folca. So please contact nicky@gofolkestone.org.uk to get yourself on the volunteer list. This collection will help people who don’t want or cannot easily drive to the Council at Ross Way, and, on the evidence of our Hythe sister, will be busy.
Feargal Sharkey of Undertones (wonderful) and anti-river pollution fame was down at Sunny Sands on Saturday (15th) at midday to offer his support to Tony Vaughan, the local Labour Party candidate and maybe chat about Swimmers Against Sewage. Trustworthy Go Folkestone members have commented that a smell of sewage is starting to hang around nearby the Shoreline development from time to time, presumably due to an imperfect system. Please tell info@gofolkestone.org.uk where the problem is. Go Folkestone wants to see better sewage disposal for all new developments as Folkestone would like its blue flag back. There will be a fuller magazine article.
To fill in a little more on Labour, hopefully objectively. Tony Vaughan was a late choice, over local candidate Jackie Meade of Radnor Park. He was brought up in Folkestone by an English dad and Filipino mother, and works in London in the same legal chambers, Doughty Street, as Keir Starmer. He now lives in a village near Canterbury. He tried originally for the Dover nomination which is more winnable. He’s a human rights and immigration barrister. He is presumably left wing as he is nominated by former Kent Refugee Action Network activist Cllr Bridget Chapman. He is highly intelligent I understand from a good source. Last week the present Home Secretary James Cleverley came down to support the Conservative candidate Damian Collins who got 60.1% of the entire vote in 2019, but is likely to be run close by Labour and/or Green long-time Hythe resident Marianne Brett, this time. James Cleverley may well be a potential next Tory leader, so his visit to support DC may do him a favour too! If Damian Collins gets back.
New half-hourly FREE Service 51 ”Reach The Beach ” will go down to the beach from 20 July to 1st September, subject to some last minute negs with Crosskeys the operators. It will start at Folkestone West, which was a strong steer from Go Folkestone, because of the large number of beach-loving residents living within an acceptable stroll of that bus stop. Then going to Central Station, Town Centre, Folkestone 51 (a destination), Old High Street Corner and Harbour Ar . Great stuff.
Closures anticipated in Folkestone following Cafe Eleto include Basil’s Cafe in Morehall Parade, fortunately sold on to another broadly similar operator for a reasonable price, and not quite yet closing. We will miss it, but it did get some marketing things wrong.
R Wallace – Chairman – Go Folkestone