Folkestone and Me

I have lived in Folkestone since 1993. Before then I was an occasional day-trip visitor over the years. My wife was born and brought up in Folkestone, though she left to live in London when she commenced studying for her professional degree. We moved to Folkestone because we considered it a better environment to raise our children, the quality of life, and cheaper housing!
Folkestone was once one of Britain’s most fashionable destinations, attracting the sobriquet of ‘gem of the south coast’ in its Edwardian heyday. King Edward VII spent so much time in the seaside resort that local people took to peering through the windows of the Grand Hotel to glimpse him having tea with his mistress, Alice Keppel, the great-grandmother of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.
Other regular visitors included Agatha Christie, who wrote her 1934 thriller, Murder on the Orient Express, at the Grand Hotel, and violinist Yehudi Menuhin.
Folkestone is one of those seaside towns that expanded rapidly when the railway from London reached them. They became fashionable places to visit and indeed to live. The first and second world wars proved disruptive to tourism due to the town’s proximity to mainland Europe and, from the 1960s, it fell into decline. Folkestone, like many seaside towns, was badly affected by the advent of cheaper foreign travel in the 1970s. The opening of the Channel tunnel, which led to the closure of local ferry services, compounded the problem. This led in turn to a depleted economy, low skills base and "dangerously high levels of family breakdown", according to a recent report commissioned by the government. Some of the town’s neighbourhoods rank among the most deprived in the country.
A recent think-tank said on key measures of poverty - school failure, teenage pregnancy, fatherlessness and lone parenting, and worklessness - some resorts now had problems as severe as deprived inner-city areas. Over half the inhabitants of Folkestone belonged to the lowest 20% of the population according to the government's deprivation index
Much of the accommodation in seaside towns like Folkestone has been acquired by private landlords and converted into "extremely cheap" housing, attracting people living on low incomes and welfare claimants, as well as less economically-active people such as single-parent families and pensioners. Also, councils in high-cost areas have been taking advantage of cheap accommodation in seaside towns like Folkestone by using them to house vulnerable people. [cheap in these contexts is relative].
As a result, coastal towns have become "veritable dumping grounds for groups such as care leavers, people with substance abuse problems, those with mental health issues and ex-offenders"
The influx of vulnerable people being re-housed was "further depressing the desirability of such areas and so perpetuating the cycle", according to the report, which goes on to state that living standards in some of the UK's best-known coastal towns had declined "beyond recognition" and locals were now "bearing the brunt of severe levels of social breakdown".
But things are changing here. Folkestone has seen substantial regeneration, including the creation of a Creative Quarter in its rundown old town, at the hands of former Saga boss Roger de Haan. Local businessman Roger De Haan sold the Saga group for £1.35bn in 2004 and established the Creative Foundation in 2002. Since then, more than £60m has been spent on refurbishing the Creative Quarter, centred on the Old High Street. This is all part of his dream to revamp the seaside village where he and his family live.
There is no doubt that Folkestone has suffered terribly from a lack of civic pride. People have been very negative about the town for the last 20 or 30 years. It seems to me, and other “immigrants” from elsewhere, that many people who have never lived anywhere else do not appreciate the potential of the town to be a great place to live once again.
It’s an ambitious project. Many of the buildings have presented a huge challenge for the trust regarding deciding what to do with them due to their poor condition.
They have been left neglected for years and in many cases, have been repaired badly causing structural issues. To bring these lost buildings to life again up to 24 new residential units are planned, in a range of small houses and flats, some with their own studio spaces “to suit potential tenants in a variety of circumstances. In addition, 13 new spaces will be created that can be used as offices, cafés, shops or for education, depending on demand.”
De Haan says he is well aware that regeneration projects elsewhere have been very successful in using artists to kick-start projects, but then as the places are regenerated, the rents rise and the artists are forced out. To counter this, De Haan's Creative Foundation will acquire property so it is in a position to control rents over the long term, protecting artists from the downside of economic recovery.
Once renovated, the buildings will be transferred to the control of the Creative Foundation, the independent charity that is “dedicated to the regeneration of Folkestone’s old town through developing arts and the creative industries and encouraging engagement with cultural activity”. The Creative Foundation already controls 94 buildings, with over 300 tenants.
A neglected grass area, Payers Park, has undergone a £1.5 million regeneration as part of the 2014 Triennial arts festival.
Roger de Haan is spending £7 million of his own cash to build a multi-storey skateboard park in the town to improve the lives of young people in the area.
There is also a plan to regenerate Folkestone’s harbour and seafront, part of which has already been achieved at Folkestone Harbour Arm. The renovated pier is the first phase of a £337m planned redevelopment of the harbour, which will see 1,000 homes, restaurants, shops, sports centres and gardens built on the seafront over the next two decades.
But there are significant costs involved in developing this area safely which include flood prevention measures. The homes on offer would range from “entry level apartments through to luxury detached beach houses”. Only 8% would be affordable housing due to the costs of converting the existing harbour and other necessary works which make the project “utterly unattractive to a commercial developer” according to David Crump, the director of the harbour development.
De Haan’s vision has its detractors. Some experts on seaside regeneration warn that the project risks a polarising gentrification of one of the town’s most deprived areas, with only 8% of the new homes classed as affordable. James Kennell, a regeneration expert at Greenwich University, said: “It’s not a development for local people. All the primary benefits are for people moving in or for visitors.”
Jonathan Ward, a sociology researcher at Leeds University, who recently published a report questioning the benefits of cultural regeneration in Folkestone and Margate, contends that the harbour development is a bit of cultural branding used to conceal what is basically a speculative property development aimed at elite consumers.”
James Kennell, of Greenwich University has commented “I’m quite positive about the harbour as a short-term intervention because of the jobs it will create in construction for local people, but 8% affordable housing is a clear statement of intent to gentrify an area of the town that has always been the most deprived. But at the same time he admits that Folkestone has deeply entrenched social problems and the regeneration that takes place has to bring in people that can help boost the local economy. He added that Folkestone was lucky to have a Victorian-style benefactor like De Haan but, despite the vast sums spent on cultural regeneration, the Office for National Statistics still rated the town as deprived. “It’s great to have a futuristic vision of the town being an entrepreneurial/creative hub with fantastic links to London but it’s all very outward-looking. Folkestone and Shepway have deeply entrenched social problems and the regeneration that takes place over the next 20 years has to bring those people in, otherwise what you’ll end up with is a very polarised town.”
The Creative Foundation and its tenants employ over 500 people, while another 45 jobs have been created on the harbour arm. Trevor Minter, who works for De Haan, said the organisation saw its role as creating jobs and improving the local economy. He added: “We’re not displacing people but we’re attracting people from a broader spectrum. Roger does not want an exclusive and gated community.”
Although the multimillionaire also sponsors Folkestone academy school and funded community groups tackling social exclusion, Minter added: “We’re not taking ownership of the problem, certainly on our own, but we want to influence it for the positive for the whole town.”
The leader of Shepway district council, David Monk, said the authority’s support for the harbour development reflected its “core objective … for more homes and better jobs in an attractive district”. He added: “We are aware of the challenges this brings but are determined to make sure that the regeneration of Folkestone benefits all of its residents.”
There is no doubt that there is a growing influx of wealthy out-of-town buyers, particularly from London, accounting for a significant proportion of recent property sales.
Nick Spurrier, chair of the Old High Street Trader's Association commented “The change for us has been psychological - that this is a good area, that we're going to do something about it, that it's going to succeed."
I hope it does succeed. The regenerated harbour arm is attracting a lot of visitors but is very weather dependant. There are an awful lot of trendy coffee shops in the old High Street now – people must drink a lot of coffee. The site of the old funfair is, sadly, still a tarmac wasteland. But the lower leas country park is maturing and so much better than it was when we I first moved here. There is an exciting plan to link the harbour arm to the other side of the harbour using the disused railway viaduct. There is a lot planned, but will it materialise quick enough?......