WE WISH OUR READERS A HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND A REWARDING NEW YEAR
The future’s bright for tourism – oh, yes, it is

THAT’S the thrust of turn-of-the-year messages from the pundits who pronounce on holiday, leisure and hospitality matters. ‘Look behind you’, the cry goes up.

Preferring to look ahead, we’re optimistic at DFHRM and stick to what we said in info@ a year ago – and also in the last issue of 2008: Shepway is better placed than most destinations to weather the consequences of the recession. Reasons for confidence in the Folkestone, Hythe and Romney Marsh product have been chronicled many times in this bulletin; indeed, they drive all our activities to attract visitor business.

As for 2010, there’s no denying that, across the district, visitor-dependent enterprises of every size and kind have had a difficult year, but its good news that many claim that it has been better than they expected. In general, Shepway tourism-related businesses seem to be in good heart and ready to tackle whatever ups and downs are on the way.

Clearly, 2011 is going to be tough. There are huge challenges ahead not only for commercial businesses which cater for holidaymakers and leisure seekers but also for destination marketing organisations which are in the government’s firing line for reform, streamlining and localisation. Tourism Minister John Penrose is due to report and recommend on these matters pretty soon. No crystal ball is needed to forecast that changes are likely to impact at all levels.

He told MPs representing seaside constituencies a few days ago that tourism provided a ‘superb opportunity’ for the rapid economic growth of their towns and they were lucky to have a Prime Minister so enthusiastic about prospects. Politics aside, the implication is welcome; information and outcomes are awaited.

Meanwhile, our New Year resolution is to attract more visitors to Folkestone, Hythe and Romney Marsh from more places more often by every affordable means. Marketing tools are well sharpened.
For now, in the spirit of our upbeat headline, festive season greetings from the DFHRM management team.

Cheers! Back in January.
Chris Kirkham, manager, Discover Folkestone, Hythe & Romney Marsh

Latest facts and figures
INFORMATION requests handled by the DFHRM office in November totalled 780: 561 by telephone; 219 by e-mail and post. While these figures were slightly lower than in the corresponding month of 2009, website traffic amounted to 553,623 hits (64,437 visitors); up from 369,020 hits (16,316 visitors) a year ago.
December figures are likely to show a similar trend, with the majority of requests for information coming from the UK, of course, but with significant numbers from overseas including long haul markets.

Tools of the trade
FOLLOWING its launch to UK and international tour operators at last month’s World Travel Market (info@, November), the 2011 edition of the DFHRM holiday and leisure planner is now in process of distribution. Over the next few months, 50,000 copies will be distributed via tourist information centres and selected outlets in main sources of UK and overseas visitors, in response to information requests and at tourism events.

At events specifically targeted to the coach and tour operator and group travel markets, it will be accompanied by an updated edition of the Shepway travel trade pack and the new Channel Region travel trade guide, published (in English) by DFHRM and Communauté d’Agglomération du Boulonnais. On behalf of Hythe Chamber of Commerce & Tourism, we will also be distributing copies of the Hythe Visitor Guide.
As for cyber space communications, there will be further development of www.discoverfolkestone.co.uk as well as the use of Facebook and Twitter, recent additions our to marketing armoury.
News in brief

Folkestone Town Centre Management, which organises the successful Folkestone Multi-Cultural Festival and Christmas lights and entertainment programme, plans to stage more events next year.
Holiday Inn Express, Cheriton Parc, has rejoined DFHRM.

Royal Military Canal bridleway between West Hythe Dam and Aldergate Bridge has been re-surfaced to improve amenities for walkers, cyclists and horse-riders.

Visit Kent has added an image of kite surfers at Greatstone to the selection of photographs to be used in a three-year Kent Contemporary poster campaign at London railway and underground stations. and is looking for pictures of tourism businesses for use in posters promoting British Tourism Week. Deadline for entries is January 12. For details, click on to infobtwphotocomp@gmail.com

Romney Marsh Countryside Project, set up in 1996 to help care for the special wildlife and beauty of the Romney Marsh and Dungeness, has been renamed Romney Marsh Countryside Partnership to emphasise that it is part of a network of Kent rural conservation organisations.

British Resorts and Destinations Association is to merge with Destination Performance UK to become British Destinations. Due to launch on April 1, the enlarged organisation aims to provide ‘an articulate voice in national tourism policy and strategy formulation’. Members include Shepway District Council.
Last but not least . . .

A TOAST to the many people, shops, businesses, community and charity organisations, event and entertainment organisers who have made such great efforts to make Folkestone, Hythe and the villages of the Romney Marsh and rural areas extra-enjoyable this festive season. They have worked wonders to cheer us all up. Thank you.

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Image via Wikipedia

I first come across Old Hall Farm produce at a local Farmers Market - and have since been to visit the farm premises in Romney Marsh several times to buy my fresh meat, pies and sausages.

Deborah (she may be the farm owner but am not sure) is really helpful and explains what each cut of meat can be used for. The lamb joints are from rare breed lambs and according to those that know means they will have more flavour, be more succulent with enhanced eating quality (it also helps the conservation of rare breeds if the public seek out butchers who sell it).

A short drive through Hythe and onwards towards Romney Marsh - and it took a few minutes to find the farm using my satnav - but it was worth the journey. The pies are deep and deliceous and the meat and sausages are very good too - so this is a trip we will be doing regularly.

Marsh Produce

Old Hall Farm

King Street, Brookland

Romney Marsh, TN29 9RJ

Telephone : 01797 344 383

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The five most threatened bumblebees in England have made an unprecedented comeback this year thanks to environmental work by farmers and smallholders.

Five threatened species, which include England’s rarest bumblebee the shrill carder bee, have all increased their geographic range in this area after decades of decline. They are now spreading across Kent and into East Sussex and the shrill carder have been seen in areas where it has not been recorded for 25 years.

environment Minister Richard Benyon said: “Bumblebees play a vital role in helping to produce our food by pollinating crops. The decline in the number of bees is a concern for the long-term future of farming, so it is great to hear that the creation of these wildlife habitats has resulted in increased numbers of so many species of rare bumblebees. These results show the benefit of agri-environment schemes and the role farmers play in protecting and improving our wildlife.”

The increases are the result of environmental work by farmers and other land managers around the coastal wildlife haven of Dungeness and Romney Marsh. Around 50 farms in the area are part of a project launched in January last year being run by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Hymettus, Natural England and RSPB to restore the habitat of the short-haired bumblebee in advance of its re-introduction from New Zealand.

Dr Nikki Gammans, who leads the project, said: “We embarked on this project so that we could create the right conditions to bring the short-haired bumblebee back to the UK – but an added benefit is that it has provided a real boost to these five threatened species.

“We hoped that we would begin to see results like this for these species but we really didn’t expect to see it quite so quickly. It’s a great result, and one we’re very excited about. The south of Kent used to have more species of bumblebee than any other UK locality until the declines in the latter half of the 20th century.

“It is especially heartening news given the worrying overall declines in bee populations in the UK which could have a major impact on the pollination success of crops. Bumblebees pollinate red clover which is grazed by cattle, as well as tomatoes, strawberries, peppers, peas and a range of other fruit and vegetable crops.”

Farmers in the area are a vital part of the project and have put in place measures including pollen and nectar rich flower margins and rotational grazing through environmental stewardship schemes. This has helped create corridors of suitable habitat linking farmland and nature reserves which have allowed the bees to spread out. More than 800 hectares of habitat has been created by farmers through the project.

Larry Cooke from Moneypenny farm, East Sussex, said: “Under my farms agri-environment schemes I have recreated habitat for bumblebees including pollen and nectar strips and red clover hay meadows.

“I am really pleased to hear that rare bumblebees are spreading across our countryside. Bumblebees are vital to the pollination of many of our agricultural crops and for long term farming sustainability. Projects such as this one and Syngenta’s Operation Bumblebee project are working hard to restore habitat and it’s great to see the results” The next stage of the project is to return the short-haired bumblebee back to the UK. An expedition to New Zealand in mid November is preparing for the translocation of queens next year. The queens will be released at RSPB’s Dungeness reserve, close to the spot where they were last recorded in 1988.

Excerpt from: http://www.smallholder.co.uk/

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New MP Damian Collin made his maiden speech in the House of Commons today and wasted no time in bringing the issue of a new power station at Dungeness before the House. Here is a transcript of todays maiden speech.

Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con): It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley). It seems that his constituency has yet another passionate and powerful advocate to represent it in this Chamber. I am sure that Members will also have been delighted to see his father present in the Gallery to witness his speech. I, too, have the distinction of following in giant footsteps, and I am particularly pleased to have the opportunity so early in this Parliament to pay tribute to my predecessor, Michael Howard.

Michael Howard will be known by many Members on both sides of the House for his 27 years of service to his constituents and his fine record in Government, too, as Secretary of State for the Environment and for Employment and—I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) will allow me this observation at this moment—as possibly the finest Home Secretary that this country has seen since the war. He will also be fondly remembered by Members on this side of the House for his leadership of our party. He did not lead us to ultimate victory, but we would credit him with turning the corner of our fortunes and laying the foundations for the success that we enjoyed at the last general election. I was also privileged in my four years as the prospective parliamentary candidate for Folkestone and Hythe to benefit from his friendship, judgment and insight. I was very grateful for that.

In an interview for a book published recently, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister mentioned that Michael Howard had one of those brilliant lawyerly minds that meant that he could win an argument even when he was in the wrong. I am sure that all those who have known him and worked with him will have seen that quality represented first hand. He was undoubtedly one of the finest politicians of his generation in the Conservative party and we remember him warmly for that. He was also dogged and determined in the pursuit of the interests of his constituents. In that regard, he was certainly a man who had something of the fight about him and something of the right about him.

I have the distinction of being the fourth Member to be elected to serve the constituency of Folkestone and Hythe since its creation in 1950, although the Cinque Port towns of Hythe and New Romney, within its boundaries, have been represented continuously since the very first Parliament was summoned by Simon de Montfort in 1265. I am conscious—as were previous speakers, as the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) said—that I follow not just one distinguished predecessor, but a long line of people who have represented the people of Folkestone and Hythe in Parliaments over the years. That is certainly a great honour.

I should like to indulge the House with reference to two former Members whose careers might be particularly relevant to the political times that we find ourselves in today. Sir Edward Watkin, who was a Victorian railway magnate and responsible for one of the early attempts to build a channel tunnel at Folkestone, rebelled from his party in 1886 and sat as a Liberal Unionist in support of the Conservative Administration of the time. Sir Philip Sassoon, who created the beautiful Port Lympne estate in my constituency and was a cousin of Siegfried Sassoon, the war poet, was a elected as a Conservative Member, but in 1920 served as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to David Lloyd George in a post-war coalition Government.

The constituency is large and varied. It stretches for some 20 miles along the coast, from the Battle of Britain memorial just to the east of Folkestone, to Dungeness and the Kent-Sussex border. Inland, it includes the unique landscape of Romney marsh and the beauty of the Elham valley and the north downs. The entrance and exit of the channel tunnel is based in my constituency. Folkestone itself, although no longer a seaport and ferry port, is undergoing a very exciting process of regeneration, as it becomes a new hub for creativity and the arts, and I believe that it has a very bright future.

The constituency also included for the first time in an election the Saxon Shore ward, taken in from Ashford borough, but true cartographers would probably say that the constituency’s boundaries are constantly changing, not owing to the pains of the Boundary Commission but because of the shifting shingle peninsula at Dungeness, which is constantly moving with the climate. The force of nature is seen by the location of lighthouses that were once offshore but are now hundreds of yards inland. It is a truly unique place in the English landscape. Charles Harper referred to it in his 1914 guide to the Kentish coast as

“one of the most remarkable places in England…a waste of shingle, with here and there a sparse patch of gorse, and stretching as far as the eye can reach.”

That landscape has not changed much but for the notable addition of the arrival of nuclear power in the 1960s. Nuclear power at Dungeness is an issue in which my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), the Minister for energy, knows that I have taken a strong interest, and on which I have corresponded with him. I should like to address some remarks in this debate to nuclear power at Dungeness.

Dungeness A power station was given approval in 1959, and a B-generation power station was commissioned in the 1960s and opened in the 1980s. That power station is due to start being decommissioned in 2017. There had been a long-held assumption in my constituency that we would be benefit from a new generation nuclear power station, as part of the Government’s new build programme. Earlier in the debate today, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) cautioned us against sending out mixed messages on the future of nuclear power. Certainly, my constituents heard a very evident mixed message from the last Government: Dungeness was originally included on the Government’s list of possible sites for new build nuclear power stations and was then removed last autumn, and there has followed a consultation process in which my constituents have taken an active and lively interest.

There is a great deal of support for nuclear power in my constituency. I am sure that hon. Members who have nuclear sites in their constituencies know that there is a good deal of support for them, because they generate a huge number of jobs and important support for the local economy. In my constituency, the area of Dungeness and the Romney marshes remains a relatively deprived part not only of my constituency, but of Kent and the south-east of England. Nuclear power could play an important part in my community.

It appears from the consultation process launched by the last Government that one of the main reasons why Dungeness was taken off the Government’s list of potential sites was the objections of Natural England. It is one of the Government’s statutory consultees, and in some ways it is only doing its job, but its assessment, based on the habitats regulations, was that the loss of the vegetated shingle in the area around Dungeness power station could not be mitigated, as the landscape was unique. All of us in my constituency would agree that it is a unique landscape, but we are also mindful that the potential development land for the new power station is only 1 per cent. of the entire protected site of special scientific interest around Dungeness, Rye and Romney Marsh; we are talking about a relatively small area of development.

When, in 1959, the Minister of Power gave consent for the first power station to be built, he reached the conclusion that the mitigation necessary, and the damage to the area, was so small that it could not be said that the building of a power station compromised the integrity of the whole site. I know that my constituents will hope that the new Government can look again at the case for nuclear power in Dungeness and will draw a similar conclusion—that it may be possible to work to mitigate the impact of the building of a new power station without compromising the integrity of the entire site, which is greatly valued not only by my constituents but by people across the country. We see the great value that nuclear power has for our community, and we would like to encourage and support it.

In conclusion, my constituents believe that having a sustainable environment is foremost among everyone’s interests in the decades ahead, but we should also have a sustainable sense of opportunity for people, so that there is an opportunity for work, for a decent life, and for people to provide for their families and children, so that people can hope that their children will have a better standard of living than they have enjoyed. We might say that those are eternal dreams and ambitions, held by every generation, but they are only delivered and realised by the decisions that we take in this House every

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There are many lovely places to visit around Folkestone and surrounding area - all the way to Romney Marsh with it’s breath-taking flat almost empty landscape - a haven for frogs, voles, leeches, newts and plants too: marsh mallow, greater water parsnip and many other varieties.

But for those of you who like to venture way back in time - to the days of prehistoric monsters and the like - then fossil hunting will be right up your street. Folkestones, The Warren, is an absolute treasure trove of fossils - ammonites and belemnites in abundance. Here is a nice little video of a family visit to The Warren and shows some of their fossil finds.

More fossil information from: http://azmineralsandgems.com/2010/03/fossil-hunting-at-folkestone-uk/

Local interest groups and a small number of residents attended the ‘Eco –Tourism summit’ at the RSPB visitors centre on March 3.

Although only 24 people attended, the meeting was generally thought to be a success with important issues addressed and discussed.

Representatives from the wildlife organisations on the Marsh, the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, Angling Associations, Shepway Cycle Forum and several Conservative Councillors were among those present.

Many speakers were strongly in favour of the initiative, although sometimes the meeting was a fractious as attendees disagreed on several issues.

Concerns were raised that residents did not want extra tourists visiting the area and the current infrastructure, especially the lack of public toilets, would not be able to cope with an increase in numbers.

Chris Kirkham of Discover Folkestone cautioned against Dungeness becoming ‘tawdry and tacky’ if initiatives were not well managed.

The need to create jobs was repeatedly stressed and caused some of the sharpest exchanges.

Malcom Dyer of Romney Marsh regeneration Partnership said, ‘we have to provide something that will improve the economic wellbeing of the area.’ Conservative Councillor Russell Tillson echoed this point and cautioned that any plan would likely need a ’15 to 20 year timeframe.’

Resident Brian Godfrey raised the strongest concerns that the project would fail. Mr Godfrey criticised the speakers, saying ‘not one of you has talked directly about job creation.’

Lambasting Marsh-based organisations and councils for the lack of communication, Mr Godfrey also raised concerns that charitable organisations were taking over vast swathes of the Marsh and were stifling development and improvement of infrastructure.

Conservative Councillor Carole Waters criticised Cllr Beaumont for ‘sounding naive.’

Speaking after the meeting, Cllr Beaumont admitted that the number of attendees was not as high as hoped, saying several organisations had expressed interest but were unable to send a representative.

Cllr Beaumont accepted the concerns raised but emphasised that an alternative plan was needed for the Marsh given that Dungeness C will not go ahead.

Cllr Tillson, who had previously called plans ‘cloud cuckoo land thinking’ said ‘I fully support any initiative to promote the Marsh,’ and added that he was pleased Ms Beaumont had been alerted to some of the difficulties faced by such projects.

The issue of the Marsh has become a major political issue in the area, and the Eco-tourism summit has so far been a key point in the Liberal Democrat’s green message.

Since the government decision not to consider Dungeness C as a site for new nuclear power station, Conservatives continue to fight for Dungeness C. This divide seems to be gaining in importance and could have a great effect on the national election this year and the District elections in 2011.

From Tom Weatherleys Blog: http://fromunderthestone.blogspot.com/2010/03/mixed-messages-at-lib-dem-eco-tourism.html