Consultation on the local development plan is hella hard to use. I'm sure it's not made deliberately difficult so that plans get swept through without local people having a voice, but it's very difficult to use anyway. Got an opinion on Princes Parade? As I've said before I'm very wary that even if something lovely sounding like low level leisure facilities in keeping with the environment and protecting and enhancing the canal etc are approved, then when the work starts we would get a surprise "oh dear there's not enough money to complete it, but we've started now, let's privatise it and build a tonne of flats over it".
Sorry to fill up your in box but the consultation web site1 is so difficult to navigate - this link takes you straight into the comments page1. It's beginning to fill up a bit now, with some interesting comments.
You can send in your complaints to this email address planning.policy@shepway.gov.uk. It's not obvious from Shepway's website but you can also use this email address to send in your responses to the consultation as an alternative to struggling with the online portal.
Please comment if you can, this is the statutory consultation and the Council have to take notice of it!
I'm sure lots of the people commenting / opposing development are those who will lose some of their view over the current open land, but I am not one of those.
This is my site The Folkestone Gerald that I set up in a fury of excitement when I first came to Folkestone in approximately '04. I had been a frequent visitor for a while before that but I am technically one of those DFLs you get nowadays. The site was updated more frequently with a gig calendar and voting for favourite places + things, + I know it was a useful reference for others who were moving to the area. Now I've moved out of Folkestone again (though only to Hythe) it doesn't get as much love as it used to. Ironic really as Folkestone itself is now becoming the exciting place we knew it was about to become. I am not Gerald BTW, the name comes from a pretend newspaper in an episode of The Day Today or something, the Portsmouth Gerald, and how there is a local newspaper here called the Folkestone Herald. Puns like this are GRATE aren't they? Do get in touch if you have anything to offer, email anythign @ this domain, or try @folkestone or @pauly on the twitter.