Folkestone: case study in arts-led regeneration
Can the arts stimulate the economy of a declining seaside town?
Key facts
- Population: 47,000
- Local authority: Shepway District Council
- Regeneration: Creative Foundation
- Director Nick Ewbank, tel: 01303 245799
Folkestone is pinning its hopes of revival on a programme of long term arts led regeneration. Unusually, this is being headed by a charitable organisation, The Creative Foundation, which has established itself as a major landowner in the town. The charity has bought up a large number of run-down properties in the oldest part of the town centre, and, in what it has renamed the Creative Quarter of Folkestone, it is renovating properties for letting to artists and creative businesses.
The Creative Foundation’s vision is that this will attract people into the town, ‘creating a vibrant and exciting environment buzzing with life and ideas, bustling with studios, shops, galleries, street art, festivals, cafes and restaurants providing a long term sustainable future for Folkestone as a centre for creativity’.
At the same time, a major refurbishment project is planned at the harbour, with a high profile masterplan being drawn up to take development through to 2015.
Folkestone hardbour masterplan (click on images to enlarge)
Folkestone’s problems
Following the twin blows of the slump in popularity of English seaside holidays, and the closure of the cross channel ferry service in 1991, Folkestone has been in steady decline. Statistics paint a gloomy picture: in its central and east wards 40% of housing was classified as unfit. It has failing schools, a 5% GCSE pass rate, low skills and low participation in higher education.
In contrast, in Victorian and Edwardian times Folkestone had been a fashionable andbusy seaside town and harbour. Its fortunes had grown with the coming of the railway to the docks in the mid 19th century. During the First World War Folkestone had been the main embarkation point for soldiers leaving to fight in the trenches of France and Belgium, although was seriously damaged during both World Wars.
At one time, Folkestone Harbour station was used to trans-ship whole trains up its steep incline. The entire line, however, was closed in 2002 remaining open only for weekly special tour trains, and is due to close completely in the near future.
Folkestone corner before regeneration
The regeneration process
Folkestone strong links with the arts began in the 1960s, when an arts centre was set up at the Metropole, a grand old hotel on historic Folkestone Leas. One driving force then was local resident Kenneth Clark, author of Civilisation and a Chairman of the Arts Council.
Another local benefactor was later to prove instrumental in the town’s fortunes when the Metropole was on the verge of closing in the 1990s. Roger de Haan, former owner of Saga Insurance, stepped in to offer three years of funding, and restore the building by setting up the Metropole Arts Centre Trust.
Roger de Haan then led a move to regenerate the whole town with an ambitious arts-led regeneration project, through the creation of the Creative Foundation, which he now chairs. Folkestone, along with other south east coastal towns facing similar problems (Margate, Broadstairs, Ramsgate and Dover) took part in a Creative Clusters conference. The arts were singled out as a key factor in stimulating regeneration.
The Creative Foundation secured £33 million from the Roger de Haan charitable trust, as part of a package of funding totalling over £100 million with other supporters including the Channel Corridor AIF, Kent County Council and Arts Council.
The Creative Foundation project The project began with the acquisition of a run down area in the oldest part of town. Containing around 70 properties, totalling over 200,000 square feet, this was to become the new Creative Quarter. The charity has been refurbishing these properties to rent them out on long term affordable contracts to artists and others involved in the creative industries.
Folkestone road before
regeneration
Since 2004, around 150 artists and ‘creatives’ have moved in, with another 600 places to be made available by 2012. Rents are pegged at between £15 and £35 a week so that tenants have long term security. The Creative Foundation is also initiating a range of projects aimed at developing opportunities for the local artistic community and bringing key creative figures to the region. For example, the Strange Cargo Arts Company is central to the creative quarter, and Georges House Gallery holds frequent exhibitions by local artists.
Other core projects
A University Centre is being formed through a partnership of Canterbury and Greenwich universities and the Creative Foundation. Courses will be offered in performing arts and industry related subjects. Leading British artists, including Tracey Emin, will be talking part in the first Folkestone Triennial next year (with 23 site-specific art commissions for the town).
Organisers hope it will match similar major arts events, such as the Biennale in Venice. Publicity for the event has already brought the town considerable publicity, including a feature in the Guardian newspaper. A nine-day Literary Festival takes place every November. Folkestone Performing Arts and Business Centre will be opening on Tontine Street in the heart of the city centre.
Folkestone road after
regeneration
Folkestone Harbour Company
The Folkestone Harbour Company was set up by Roger de Haan to purchase the declining Sea Containers’ port for £11 million in 2004. Foster and Partners were commissioned to produce a masterplan for Folkestone which was published in April 2006.
Ambitious refurbishment plans envisage rebuilding the 14 acre redundant harbour as a marina, with a "Green Wave" along the sea front linking countryside west and east of the town, including new housing, shops, a performance area and a university campus for 1500 students. These £600 million plus plans include proposals to rejuvenate 11 acres along the seafront, and link in with the new Creative Quarter. The scheme is due for completion in 2015.
It is also hoped to reopen the ferry link to Boulogne in order to make the port once again a jumping off point for France.
The masterplan can be downloaded in full from the Folkestone Harbour Company website.
Other projects Improving the skills base in the town are seen as critical to the regeneration process.
The new Foster and Partners designed Folkestone Academy (which will have 1500 pupils) opened in September 2007 with 1500 pupils, sponsored by Roger de Haan and Kings School Canterbury.
A new 200,000 sq ft shopping centre at Bouverie Place is due to open shortly. From 2009, high speed train services from centre of Folkestone to London will cut the journey down to an hour. There will also be high speed Eurostar connections to Calais through the channel tunnel which runs close to the town.
Folkestne Corner Wedge,
after regeneration
Folkestone small business
Landscape
The local authority has also been involved in a series of regeneration initiatives. Shepway Council’s Streets and Squares initiative has brought visible improvements to the older streets that will fall between the new mall and the revitalised Creative Quarter.
Work is also being carried out to rejuvenate the town’s neglected seafront park. In Folkestone’s heyday the stretch of land that ran from the harbour west beneath the cliff was one of the town’s glories, a landscaped garden shading gradually into more natural trees and foliage. This Coastal Park was the focus of one of the council’s first major regeneration projects in the latter half of the 1990s.
Funded by SEEDA, the European Union and Shepway District Council, the £1.2 million project created the largest free adventure playground in the South East and restored the historic 'Zigzag Path' to the clifftop. The first phase of the restoration opened in May 2000, and already attracts around half a million visitors every year. In 2007, it won a Green Flag award.
Successful landscaping in
Folkestone
