Protect & Preserve The Folkestone Leas

 The Leas Clifftop Promenade, created by the Victorians and Edwardians, was once renowned for its unrivalled vistas of the White Cliffs of Dover, the French coastline, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, and the sweeping shingle bay to Dungeness. Today, this unique heritage is at serious risk. Overgrown trees and neglected hedges have almost completely obscured these once-uninterrupted views, diminishing a cherished landmark.

We,/us the members of the Protect & Preserve The Folkestone Leas community Facebook Group, are committed to reversing this decline and restoring The Leas to its former glory for everyone to enjoy. Folkestone Residents Demand Urgent Action to Restore & Protect The Leas Sea Views!

 That we believe that the Leas Promenade is far too important and integral a part of Folkestone's Victorian/Edwardian heritage that it should be left to be managed just by a local authority dependent upon the whim of whichever political party of the day governs our district.

Our town's fragile economy, which depends so much on tourists and visitors coming here to enjoy the Leas Promenade, must be managed in partnership with its local authority and its community of local residents who show concern and love for its continued longevity.

We must Protect & Preserve The Folkestone Leas, our Leas Promenade, for our children and our children's children and for future generations to come to enjoy. We cannot achieve that and bestow a better Leas on those to come than the one we found if it is managed in the way it has been up until now. We cannot afford to sit idly by whilst our Victorian/Edwardian heritage crumbles, rusts, erodes, and falls apart. Our stunning 36 Victorian lamp posts that stretch along our promenade from east to west are eroding and rusting away, and pieces are missing or falling off them. They have not been painted in nearly 12 years. Our ragstone walls are breaking up, as are the many steps and pathways along the Promenade and Madeira Walk. Our precious Zig Zag path now sees its Pulhamite cement render washing off its brick/building rubble foundation, and tall heavy trees still threaten its very stability.

Hedges block out sea views to anyone sitting on memorial benches that families in memory of past loved ones have paid over £2k for. People in wheelchairs are openly discriminated against, unable to see the sea along many stretches of the Leas Promenade. It is almost impossible to get anyone in a wheelchair safely down or back up the Zig Zag path.

Tall heavy non native evergreen trees such as Holm Oaks sit precariously along the Leas summit across much of the escarpment. Making the cliff top unstable as each passing downpour erodes soil off their shallow tree roots and strong winds leverage their trunks down to their root systems. Eventually, they will fall as similar Holm Oaks on the same sand and sandstone formation above the Road of Remembrance as they did in January 2024, 2 years ago. Evasive Sycamore trees, another non native tree to our shores spreads out of control along much of the Leas Cliff summit, as do privet hedges in places, and even stunning Scots Pines, as beautiful as they are, threaten cliff top summits in places like the Step Short Arch and the Zig Zag path.

Designing out crime and the fear of crime.

Parts of our Leas Promenade have been under threat by groups of men and women, anti-social alcohol street drinkers who behave aggressively, threatening and intimidating, begging more as they drink day and night. Rough sleeping on memorial benches or in tents is becoming a familiar sight. Drug dealing takes place in the Sensory Gardens most nights. This area alone is almost a no-go area for lone women walking home from work at night, or a night out, or even walking their dogs. Our Leas Promenade is poorly policed and poorly lit in places, and no CCTV system is in operation along its entire length.

We lose the battle to keep our Leas Promenade a safe place for families with children to visit at our town's peril. Its economy, so dependent on tourism and visitor numbers, will suffer huge consequences if our Leas Promenade is seen as an unsafe place to visit because of having a reputation for a place that not only allows but tolerates bad anti-social behaviour. It could take years to turn around and reverse a bad image, as so many other seaside towns in the UK have had in the past, such as Margate, Southend, Brighton, Ramsgate, Blackpool, Bournemouth, to name just a few. Even Broadstairs last summer had to deal with a huge rise in anti-social behaviour and violent incidents involving teenagers on jolly away-day trips from London down to the coastal town.

 It is for the People of Folkestone and not Politics and political parties and their policies, dogmas, and ideologies of the day that must decide the fate of our precious jewel in our town's unique Victorian/Edwardian cliff top heritage.

The Leas Promenade must be held in a Charitable Trust at its heart; it must be true to conserving those sea views and the infrastructure along its whole escarpment from east to west that the visionary Victorians/Edwardians bestowed on us. It must be able to hold to account both its local authority and elected politicians and its police on how the Leas Promenade is being protected and made to feel a safe place for families to visit and enjoy, and for local businesses to thrive and flourish.

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

 

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