June 2008 Go Folkestone Action group www.gofolkestone.org.uk WARDS HOTEL WARDS HOTEL is a family run business and it offers quality service. The staff are helpful and maintains a friendly atmosphere. We do cater for Weddings, Birthday Parties, Anniversaries, Conferences and any other occasions such as Funeral receptions and Christenings. Our Sunday Carvery is now also becoming a WARDS HOTEL& RESTAURANT “family feasting day” within the local 39 Earls Avenue Folkestone community in Kent for just only £9.95(3 Kent CT 20 2HB course meal). WWW.WARDSHOTEL.NET We are also offering a promo which is EAT FOR 5X CARVERY MEAL & GET THE 6TH FOR FREE. Wards Hotel has a Bar and Restaurant which offers a variety of exciting menus which are continually appraised to provide and cater for the up coming clienteles. For more information contact Reception on 01303-245166 or Email: [email protected] EDITORIAL CONTENTS The single most important issue we will 2 Summer sightseeing bus be looking at this month is Shepway District Council’s move towards parking 3 Folkestone West in new restrictions in central Folkestone. Parkway 4 Controversial parking plans See the article from Richard Wallace. Consider how it will affect residents, 5 Life in the old dog yet Visitors, Tourism and Trade. Come to 6 Exciting designs in the Old the meeting at Wards Hotel (4th June High Street 2008 at 7.30 pm) don’t wait until it is too late to make your views known. 7 Soundwaves on the beach It will affect more people than those who 8 The Drama Room live in that area. 9 Upstairs/downstairs at the Grand Now on a happier note, there are a lot of events going on over the summer 11 Wonders and blunders months, please look at the ‘What’s on’ 12 A look at the local Coastwatch pages. Who said nothing ever happens in Folkestone! 14 On the slide at the sports centre Go Folkestone’s popular Soundwaves on the Beach, is supported by Shepway 15 What’s on District Council and the De Haan Trust. 19 Our heritage for sale? Terry Begent has updated us on the two 20 Folkestone Triennial meetings held on ‘Life in the old Dog yet’ 25 I made Folkestone my home Plus there are many more interesting 26 Adonis Blue butterfly articles for our readers to enjoy. 28 Is TV antisocial? If you have areas of concern why not let us know by writing or e-mailing to the address below. Ann Berry. Editorial Committee: Ann Berry, Lynne Chairman Go Folkestone Smith, Richard Wallace, Terry Begent. Front cover photograph: “April in Kingsnorth Gardens—a hidden Please send all comments/ treasure” supplied by Wendy Van contributions to Ann Berry, 35 Birkdale Halderen Moss www.myspace/satori. Drive, Folkestone, CT19 5LP or Email (Word document only please) We also acknowledge FOLKESTONE [email protected] LIONS CLUB, who initially sponsored and formed GO FOLKESTONE ACTION GROUP Advertising rates Full page from £50, quarter page from £25 (colour + 50%) per edition 1 Take a nostalgic trip around the historic sights in the area on board a Summer sightseeing bus PEN-TOP bus tours are again to feature among Shepway’s summer season attractions. Operated by Kent-based sightseeing specialist O“Over the Top”, tours will run daily, weather permitting, from May 17 to September 7, on a circular route taking in coastal and inland scenic viewpoints and places of interest in and around Folkestone and Hythe. The itinerary will include the Leas Railway station is timed for promenade, Princes Parade and 4.30pm. Light Railway station at Hythe, Tickets will be valid 24 hours from Folkestone Race Course, the time of purchase. Hawkinge RAF Museum, Battle of Britain Memorial at Capel, and Fares, payable on the bus, will be Folkestone”s East Cliff. A taped £6.50 for adults, £5.50 for senior commentary will provide citizens, £3.50 for children over passengers with information. five, free for under fives travelling with a fare-paying adult. Family With departures from the Grand tickets for two adults and two Burstin Hotel, Folkestone, every children over five will cost £16. ninety minutes from 10am until 4pm, round-trip tours will last one “Over the Top” already runs hour 20 minutes, with hop-on sightseeing excursions in Thanet hop-off opportunity at designated and plans similar services at other stops to enable passengers time resorts. The company operates as for sightseeing and visits en route. a franchisee of international tour Last departure from Hythe Light operator City Sightseeing Details: Lance Young - 01795 530806 2 Folkestone West is new parkway station tephen Gasche, SDC Transport Planning Officer recently gave a talk to Shepway Tourism Action Group, which confirmed that West Station was Sgoing to be the new parkway station for Folkestone in time for the high-speed rail service”s inception in December 2009, despite some recent rumours about Westernhangar. A mini-roundabout will probably be plan to put a lot more parking within necessary at the junction of the long thin station development area Shorncliffe and Beachborough (or for 2009. is it still Shorncliffe) Roads. Furthermore Mr Gasche believed, that Although the Rail for Folkestone although there were no “green” plans Web-site indicates for a small office block or housing next that journeys may to the station, the be as fast as 57 existing Victorian minutes, 59 buildings might still minutes is as likely be demolished. and then only for a It would seem few trains to unnecessary for the substantiate the current handsome if valuable “London unkempt 1880”s in under an Hour “ buildings to be boast. replaced by anything Many 62-3 minute in view of the limited journeys via development Ashford, Ebbsfleet and (Olympic) required for a Stratford to St Pancras will however parkway station. justify both Folkestone West”s new We should be ensuring that the status as a viable commuter station parking keeps within the pleasant (change at Stratford for the City) and context of the red brick, the carriage the work commencing on parking drive, the avenues of Horse Chestnuts, spaces. and even the semi-rural hedges. Local town and district councillors have The trouble with the railways is that got to make sure that the expensive they do have partial exemption from new parking policies of Shepway are the planning regulations, which integrated with the railway parking so stopped normal developers that locals can still park easily in local demolishing most Victorian buildings roads; could there also be some park- thirty years ago. and- ride arrangements and a café or shop offices within the old buildings? Some letters and calls to involved local councillors and MPs, such as Rory Most of the current work, as reported Love and George Bunting, about both in the last issue, is actually being done parking and planning would be for VSE i.e. the Orient Express luxury advisable! service: 8 coach parking bays etc. But the scrub clearance and the limited life Councillor Richard Wallace of the local car sales are down to a 3 Shepway District Council has published its plans for town centre parking from December 2008. PARKING SCHEME COMES TO FOLKESTONE he centre of Folkestone from the areas, leave 25% as garden, do not Royal Victoria Hospital to the remove mature trees, or all boundary Tcoast and from Grimston Avenue walls. to Tontine Street will be split into four This seems to be an expression of areas of about ten main streets each Government policy as every local and residential permit-holders will be council is going a similar way with local able to park almost anywhere in their variations, including already own area for £25.00 per Canterbury and Thanet. annum. The policy will soon be SHEPWAY’S NEW rolled out at roughly 6 Every household will PARKING PROPOSAL month intervals across first also get a number of Go Folkestone, invites Folkestone West and visitor permits you to come and have Cheriton, then Folkestone (provisionally up to 60) your say East and Sandgate. It is at £1.00 each, which also affecting Hythe and have to be dated and 4 June 2008 at 7.30 pm New Romney. put in people”s cars like In Wards Hotel, ordinary parking tickets. Businesses will pay at Earls Avenue least £125 to park in any Thus, you get 60 visitor area, £375 for all four, and days per year or your will have to buy permit visitor can find a tickets for every registration number. If voucher area. It must be worth fighting you run a company car from home you so that expectant mothers, new get the manager to confirm in writing mothers, people with health problems, that you are the keeper and it then and very elderly people (over 80?) to counts as residential. get free, extra visitor tickets. Voucher parking, as in Canterbury, is available At least travelling businesses such as to people from local shops for a few plumbers can use visitor or voucher pounds. tickets, but voucher streets may be thinly spread. Does the local We hope that these shops, will be local businessman get treated the same as shops and post offices that will draw in Tesco? It seems so as at May. custom for other things and that they will be spread over Cheriton and the We could suggest a lower rate for suburbs too, so people can buy in businesses with branches only within advance. We should be given a firmer Folkestone or perhaps Shepway, idea of the penalties for infringing and/or a lower rate for the first named these parking laws .