FHDC WE SEE NO SLIPS

 

 

 

 

 

 Thank God there are whistleblowers in every organisation and in Government & Local Government Departments.

 

Without whistleblowers, politicians would be able to totally keep their electorate in the dark, fed solely on bullshit. 

 

One such Whistleblower at FHDC contacted us last year and told us that we must obtain, under a Freedom Of Information request from FHDC, their commissioned LIDAR & VSSA Report into the possible cause of the landslides along the whole of the Leas escarpment cliff face and summit. The whistleblower told us its findings were potentially concerning regarding the threat of other areas at risk of landslides and because FHDC had basically ignored the report and kicked it into the long grass.

 LIDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging, is an active remote sensing system that can be used to measure vegetation height across wide areas. It can show us the topography, i.e. lay of the land beneath tree canopies and vegetation. 

 

VSSA  Visual Slope Stability Assessment

 

 


 

 FHDC Sees No Slips on the horizon; despite all of its past warnings, it chooses to continually ignore them.

Tall heavy evergreen trees with shallow root systems perched on high cliff top summits consisting mostly of sand and sandstone, and being thrown around in every storm and tempest = falling trees and possible landslides at anytime in the future.

 The report highlighted 2 specific areas along the Leas that concerned the company, EPS Ltd., which carried out the Visual Slope Stability Assessment.

These 2 specific areas are named in the report as L1 and L2

 L1 is directly west and just a few yards from the Metropole Steps, an area where we believe a landslide occurred sometime around 2003. 

 




 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
FHDC has had the findings of this report since the 26th of June 2024, and the only trees taken down since then on the whole of the Leas Promenade were 1 by the Vinery in 2024, 4 over the Zig Zag path in 2024, and 1 more towards the top of the Zig Zag path in 2025.

So, despite the warnings in this report, not a single tree elsewhere has been taken down or reduced in height and weight along the whole of the Leas escarpment cliff top summit.

 

Even worse, because FHDC does not own the Leas beyond Metropole Road West towards Radnor Cliff and Sandgate, which is several hundred yards long with tall heavy trees on its cliff top summit, many of whom overhang Madeira Walk that the public have access to, the report did not cover this area.

FHDC has a duty of care to protect the public on any land that the public has unfettered right of access to. Just because they do not own the land or the trees does not absolve them from any responsibility.

The survey should have been allowed to extend along the whole escarpment summit, and any findings of risks to the public of falling dangerous trees belonging to landowners could have been dealt with by a legal enforcement notice to reduce and mitigate the threat of danger by taking the trees down or pollarding them.

Join us on our Facebook Group Protect & Preserve The Folkestone Leas.

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Location: Folkestone, UK

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