Time For Change: The Way Our Leas Promenade Is Being Mismanaged Cannot Go On!

 I felt it was time for a change of cover photo for our group and that it needed something to reflect the Leas Promenade's vibrancy as well as its stunning backdrop of the English Channel on one side of it and its many period buildings on the other.

Our Leas Promenade is in much need of rejuvenation the kind of rejuvenation the Harbour Arm has been going through for over a decade now.

I remember staying in the Burstin Hotel on 2 occasions about 14 years ago, and how sad the harbour arm looked. It looked like a junk yard, totally depressing, as did the old Steep Street/ High Street, with practically every shop boarded up.

Whatever your thoughts about Sir Rodger De Hann are or Creative Folkestone, they had a vision for the Harbour Arm, the high street, and the now Creative Quarter. What they have achieved is truly remarkable.

It is this kind of thinking out of the box and private investment that is needed for the Leas Promenade.

This local authority and all those who have been associated with it for years, even decades, Councillors in power, Directors, and top and middle management are all answerable for the Leas looking so unloved and neglected. It has been starved of investment and funding everywhere you look.

We are the only community group that is holding this whole ratbag of an organisation responsible for how the Leas looks today, sad, tired, and not looking fit for the purpose It was intended for. It was laid out by those great Victorians and Edwardians with vision in bucket loads to be a Promenade to enjoy a stroll whilst taking in the sea views to one side and the beautiful buildings on the other. Now those views are fast disappearing along much of the Leas. We fear that this will continue as we doubt the new forthcoming Unitary Authority will be no better at managing the Leas Promenade than FHDC has.

There is no vision for the Leas Promenade; it is clear for all to see that it has been and continues to be mismanaged, as has the Road of Remembrance, so blindingly has been. Those trees that fell nearly 2 years ago, come next January, should have been taken down years ago. Even their own tree teams wanted to take many of them down, but FHDC would not let them close the road down to do it. Why has no one in authority been held responsible and taken to account over this complete failure to protect our town's vital infrastructure that could well have killed people if it had happened later in the day?

What can we do about it? Well, we have to fight on; otherwise, we will lose the Leas Promenade. This summer gone, we thought that given the huge increase in numbers of anti-social street drinkers on the Leas that it was fast becoming a no-go zone for families.

Some of us were not going to let that happen, and we persisted in calling the police many times to get these groups broken up and moved on.

I like to think that by doing this that we made a difference. By plugging away at this council and whoever comes after them, we will succeed one day in not only protecting what views we still have but also start to restore, where possible, those lost views that are a quick fix in recovering, like hedge growth that blights much of the Leas views, that disabled people in wheelchairs cant see over to see the sea.

Getting urgent repairs done to the Leas' disintegrating infrastructure is something else we much urgently fight for.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/746105824775303/posts/860189073366977/