Thank you to the people who participated in the June Go Folkestone Litter Pick in central Folkestone. Patty is setting a date for the next one in August. It will be on a Friday at 2pm and be at Leas Arch. From there we can radiate out in all directions as far as F51 or the Civic Centre and still be back at the FHDC van by 3.30pm or 4pm if keen. We may try a variation such as Cheriton or Radnor Park in September. Gloves, sacks and litter pickers provided.
Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd July has an exhibition concerning the Acme architects’ Seafront and more particularly proposed Harbour Car Park flats mentioned in our magazine and on the link. This will be from memory 10.30-4pm, at the Customs’ House/Shoreline building by the Inner Harbour. Planning permission has already been given in outline for a large number of flats and some shops with underground and overground parking, but these are the designs and the more precise layout. You could comment on car parking, sewage, cycle lanes, the balance of shops v flats etc or suggest a plainer design, a green micro-park on part of the current harbour car park offset by taller blocks etc etc. You might even support it as seen. There are some great models.
The last Go Folkestone meeting on Wednesday 12 July voted comfortably in favour of the Cheriton to Central Station Active Travel Scheme. It has been completely changed since we campaigned against it last year. The shopping stretch of Cheriton Road and High Street from Coombe Road to Somerset Road will maintain all its trees and the same 42 car parking spaces that were being eliminated last year, but be resurfaced and have road tables, new bus stops and 20 mph signs; it should be a facelift. The eastern stretch from Coombe Road to the railway station will have proper marked cycle lanes by each kerb, 30mph, and the crossing around the Harvey GS and Morrisons will be improved. There will be a proper right filter control into Beachborough Road while left and straight on will be combined on the same traffic light. We’d like to see some traffic islands as well as road tables, and don’t much like a cycle lane on the path by Radnor Park but on the whole, we recommend you go on the link below and give this scheme, which is being paid for by central government, a qualified thumbs up. This ‘active travel’ money would NOT be used for potholes if the scheme is turned down, but you might say that your absolute priority is the timely filling of potholes as Go Folkestone’s is. https://letstalk.kent.gov.uk/cheriton-to-folkestone-proposed-cycling-and-walking-improvements
We are helping Incredible Edible with summer watering, to start with at Morehall Parade and Folkestone West station planters. Also, Three Hills Sports’ Centre tree watering, where Go Folkestone planted trees last year, and Cheriton Road cemetery where the Friends meet about 11.30am on Saturdays. Last Tuesday Elisabeth and I tested the WCCP group’s green gang at Shorncliffe, for Go Folkestone, and found it well organised and friendly. We were actually going through the woods pulling up the delicate but invasive Indian plant the Himalayan Balsam. This is the easiest tall plant to pull up that I have ever known but chokes native species, and being foreign isn’t eaten by caterpillars etc. WCCP also work on Folkestone Warren and our website has the volunteer work dates.
Contact Nicky and Pam on info@gofolkestone.org.uk to be on the Green Gang team either through WhatsApp or low tech. If you can only do early evenings we could have a footpath clearing job for you to help in at Castle Hill.
Check out the plans to knock down 22/24 Cheriton Gardens, the former Concorde Language School, and object. It should be converted to flats not demolished.
The Government has just set up Great British Nuclear to accelerate nuclear power in Britain. Damian Collins MP has advised this week that Dungeness B, having been closed as a conventional NPS, and decommissioned over several years, is in pole position as a site for Small Modular Reactors, the preferred new technology. He has shown the relevant Govt minister Andrew Bowie the site, last week, and done a hard sell. I am not sure of the Greens’ position.