I thought I'd introduce myself to you all and thank you for signing this petition.

My name is Stephen West, and I'm photographed with my 16-year-old dog Jack. If you see us about on the Leas anytime, do stop and chat with me.

This petition, as you all know, is primarily about saving our diminishing by the day seaviews along the Leas and to demand action from Folkestone & Hythe District Council to stop that encroachment and to actually start to restore some of those lost views by cutting down the trees that are on the summit of the escarpment that threaten the cliff face stability. Similar trees on similar weakened terra firma ground that exists at the Road of Remembrance in Folkestone, and the devastation caused there by similar tall heavy trees sliding down a cliff face consisting of nothing much more than sand, sandstone, and Gault Clay.

Remember the Folkestone landslide of 1784 was a major landslip that dramatically reshaped the coastline, creating a significant new strip of land at the base of the cliffs where the Lower Leas Coastal Park is now situated.  
 
Details of the Event
 
Formation of New Land: The huge landslip produced a substantial area of flat land between the new cliff line and the beach, stretching for over a mile from the harbour to Sandgate. Some contemporary accounts indicate the resulting strip of land was approximately 30 meters wide.

FHDC seems to forget that the whole of the Leas Promenade from the Bayle included to Radnor Cliffs is the result of a land fault, where the topography here is tall trees and constant rainfall that is eroding away the topsoil, and that only a matter of time will it be before more trees start to collapse as they become less supported by their own tree roots.

The other scourge on the Leas that is rapidly obscuring seaviews is hedge growth, which 40 years ago there were none, nor trees towering over the summit. This hedge scourge, like the trees, has been allowed to happen by an unwillingness to tackle the problem by FHDC and its Parks & Gardens Department.

New railings were put in place along the Leas, where once the growth could be cut back, often it soon became the case that they either could not get behind the railings to cut back the growth or walk inside the railings to cut it all back, as had happened in the years before.

Now we are left with large sections of the Leas Promenade blighted by hedgerows that block out seaviews to those sitting on expensive Memorial Benches or those unfortunate to be in wheelchairs who are effectively being discriminated against and prevented from seeing the sea.

We have now reached 1,525 signatures since we launched this petition on Wednesday, the 9th of July this year. I feel the time is right now to submit it because if all things go to plan in the Local Government Reorganisation programme, the Government wants to implement then FHDC will be gone on the 1st of April 2028. We will become part of a larger Uniatry Authority, based who knows where, Canterbury, Ashford, perhaps even Dover. They will be more clueless and less knowledgeable about our precious Leas Promendae and less likely to want to spend money on it than this current useless regime that has sat about fiddling whilst the Leas burned for many, many years.

I have to declare Victory, which is an odd word because we have not achieved any victory, and I doubt we will because FHDC is totally reluctant, almost riddled with rigar mortis when it comes to doing much on the Leas especially trees despite all the warnings and wake up calls it has had it has simply ignored the fact that each and every tree on the Leas Escarpment above the cliff face summit is at risk sooner or later of falling and taking the slopes with it. By technically declaring victory, Change.org electronically sends and submits our petition to FHDC for us. 

We have an awful feeling we must now wait for another landslide on the Leas involving trees like that that occurred on the Road of Remembrance in 2024 before the council will do anything, and we will be telling them that Mother Nature and us foresaw this and told them so.

Only the next landslide, this council might not be so lucky as the next one could injure someone, or worse still, kill some poor soul. If that happens, then FHDC's Councillors in its Cabinet and its CEO and paid directors will be held accountable and answerable by us, the public. They could all be liable for corporate manslaughter charges brought against them collectively if it can be found that their failure to do anything contributed to the loss of someone's life.

We can still carry on posting updates on this petition and what is happening on the Leas, and one day I believe I will have to reopen the petition to obtain more signatures on it and present it to the new Unitary Authority, god help us, and god save the Leas Promenade.

In the meantime, we still have a few more days before I close the petition to obtain more signatures, as everyone counts, so please do share it with your friends and families.

Best wishes, Stephen West & Jack 

Please support us on our Facebook Grouphttps://www.facebook.com/groups/746105824775303

Postscript

3rd December 2025

We have only just this moment been informed by FHDC that they do not accept petitions from Change.org, as the signatures of those who sign them cannot be validated by the council, as they do not have their email address or home addresses. So what is the point of platforms like Change.org I have just wasted nearly 6 months of my life obtaining the signatures and writing many updates to it.

Change.org should have made petition starters aware of this fact.

We will, however, say this: we have posted our petition for the last 6 months on every social media platform, including dozens of times on every local Facebook Community page. Every politician in the land is on social media as they use it when electioneering or seeing what's been written about them or others. Every senior officer and senior civil servant uses social media; every journalist uses social media. So it's impossible that none of ours locally have not seen our posts or our petition its content or the numbers (1,525) who have shown their concerns about the state of our Leas Promendae and signed our petition; no one forced them to sign this petition. No one forced the 187 so far who have joined our Facebook Group Protect & Preserve The Folkestone Leas.

We will not accept this as a setback, as this petition is out there for all to see, including our local politicians and senior civil servants who are responsible for the state of our Precious Leas Promenade. We will continue to update this petition, and we will still post daily on our Facebook Group. All those mentioned in this day and age are on social media, and so will continue to see our posts. We know that FHDC is keeping an eye on us, and we are only too happy about that. 

The Fight Goes On!