Re Go Folkestone projects themselves PLEASE chat to our volunteers at our Saturday morning electrical recycling stall in the town centre, if you can volunteer even for an hour in future. Or of course bring your small electricals straight to us , even vacuum cleaners and tellies . We are reliably opposite Boots between 10.00am and 2.00pm. Although we have much appreciated FHDC, Town Council and Rotary support we partially support ourselves and would like you to buy our lovely 2025 calendar to replenish our funds, at County Fayre , Seymour Harrison , County Hardware , Marrin Books , FTC AND at St Andrew’s Church craft fair on Saturday 30th November 1.30pm to ca 5pm …………..St Andrew’s Day . Our chair David Noble would like some help at St Andrews. It’s Cheriton Christmas Lights Day !!!
Please also come to the Leas Arch at the top of the Road of Remembrance at 2pm on Friday 29th November for our normal, fully supplied monthly Town Litter Pick on the last Friday in every month . Unless the heavens absolutely open !?
Homebase at West Park Farm is closing soon because the DIY chain has folded . 70 stores nationally have been immediately saved by being sold to The Range . Chris Dawson of The Range is a very successful operator . However they do already have the Cheriton Range in Firs Lane . They haven’t therefore bought Folkestone Homebase. It is on the market and 29th November is an important deadline , when the administrator looks at the offers received . A purely personal suggestion is that The Range should move to Homebase and sell Firs Lane , a natural housing area , for housing, but that isn’t happening . Aldi continue to try and put a branch of their supermarket on the former Silver Spring site in Park Farm Road , with a couple of drive thru’s added .
Arguably , with West Park Farm , the Harbour and Sandgate Road all fighting for custom, all are losing a little bit . The sooner something moves on Folca , the empty Debenhams, and the sooner poor shops are allowed to go residential ,moving viable businesses to viable shops , the better . In quick time since around 2010 Folca has been slated, in part ,for a health centre ( GF liked that a lot ) , new library , and for council functions currently in the overlarge Civic Centre , but nothing has come off . Go Folkestone members certainly want fewer empty shops , although most would love the library to stay at listed Grace Hill if financially viable. At least the County Council is on record as wanting a new library somewhere in town , and the District Council is pursuing moving more of its functions to Sandgate Road . In the absence of any big shopping chains wanting to move back in this Internet Age, as confirmed by many good commercial agents, that is the best we can hope for currently.
The Council is hoping to consult on the final details of its new road and bus station layout in January, but is still wedded to it in principle . Go Folkestone , meeting at Wards Hotel at 6.45pm every second Wednesday to discuss the town , would still like the bus station simply modernised and landscaped , but that is currently not the plan . Still proposed , and tendered for , is a linear array of 5 new bus shelters along the main road , plus a holding shelter, and a garden in Bouverie Square . Rich Holgate and others have worked hard, and it might work, but all of our members still worry about gridlock, and still like the existing 1954 building. The latter is once again being used for a drivers’ rest room and now a Stagecoach advisor or ‘’floorwalker’’ to help customers. But the buses have to park somewhere during the rest periods and might get in the way of cars , ASDA car park etc etc without good planning.
Go Folkestone is one of the stakeholders in an invaluable focus group set up by Cllr Polly Blakemore on bus services, which speaks directly with Stagecoach . So please come along to GF with your ideas. Currently many locals are trying to improve services to William Harvey H , Broadmead Village ( Cllr Belinda Walker) , Joyes Road ….AND the Creteway Down council estate which has lost its bus service . Some good compromises on Bouverie Square have been floated and should be discussed e.g. having half the square green and half ( wc side)buses , but nearly all involve a single long line of buses along the green edge of a garden : some merit but not very child friendly . Why not just put specimen trees and electronic signage into the present bus layout?
The new MP Tony Vaughan is interested. He is, incidentally, expected to set up his new Labour office in the old NHS office in Cheriton Gardens a few doors down from Frederic Hall, very soon. The Conservatives are staying in Westcliff Gardens .
Meanwhile the giving of planning permission to William Marcus Brown for the creation of 32 flats for rent over Bon Marche has prompted a better deal being offered by him to BM to stay where it is ; better the devil you know and the extra rent while you’re building . The previous owner stuck its heels in on Bon Marche’s rent and the shop almost closed and then almost moved to the former H.Samuel . Samuels is instead probably going to a known brand new occupier. All good news for Sandgate Road.
Saturday , in the centre of town the Go Folkestone Recyclers , based opposite Boots , actually saw a shopfront hoarding crash over in Sandgate Road in Storm Bert . The Police had to look after it for a few hours to prevent any theft. Was it the former New Look? Anyway it was vacant and to let like so much of the town. Go Folkestone will be having its next meeting on Wednesday 11th December at 6.45pm at Wards Hotel ( still fully open for business) . I would be surprised if the Chair and Committee don’t want to discuss a serious approach to the District Council and others about the state of Sandgate Road and the future of Folca/Debenhams. Sandgate Road is the key to the town and the District own the Debenhams Building. If you don’t have a good ‘’high street’’ then you have very little.