Folkestone Future

As we approach the local elections on May 4th, Star Wars fans will enjoy the coincidence with the annual calendar joke they share of ‘May the fourth be with you…!” We need some sense of futuristic planning from our would-be councillors.

Coincidentally today sees the publication of a new report from the government’s Department of Science, Innovation and Technology setting out proposals for Britain being a bastion of new technology and programmes to make that happen.

The government publication – link here to read in full – sets out the following 10-point plan:

The 10 points of the new Science and Technology Framework centre on:

• identifying, pursuing and achieving strategic advantage in the technologies that are most critical to achieving UK objectives
• showcasing the UK’s S&T strengths and ambitions at home and abroad to attract talent, investment and boost our global influence
• boosting private and public investment in research and development for economic growth and better productivity
• building on the UK’s already enviable talent and skills base
• financing innovative science and technology start-ups and companies
• capitalising on the UK government’s buying power to boost innovation and growth through public sector procurement
• shaping the global science and tech landscape through strategic international engagement, diplomacy and partnerships
• ensuring researchers have access to the best physical and digital infrastructure for R&D that attracts talent, investment and discoveries
• leveraging post-Brexit freedoms to create world-leading pro-innovation regulation and influence global technical standards
• creating a pro-innovation culture throughout the UK’s public sector to improve the way our public services run

The delivery of this new Framework will begin immediately with an initial raft of projects, worth around £500 million in new and existing funding, which will help ensure the UK has the skills and infrastructure to take a global lead in game-changing technologies.

The full strategy is published as a document which can be downloaded here – for any tech or innovation minded candidates!

So what does all of this innovation offer Folkestone?

To take advantage of these longer term policies, under any government, we need the infrastructure and facilities in place.

An incubation centre is very simply a space which offers new companies and enterprises the support needed on the business front to allow their imagination and innovation to work through to practical production of apps, devices, invention.
We don’t have such a place in Folkestone.

A new technology business development team is a group working alongside such facilities to clear obstacles, identify mentoring, build the profile of this sector in a local economy.
We don’t have such a team in Folkestone.

We have the leftovers of the Community Works programme – this offered general support to members of the community to encourage entrepreneurial activity. It had mixed success and ends this month.

So much for forward planning.

What we do have is close enough to make these developments relevant and possible in our community.

We have some outstanding committed officers in the District Council, in the communications team, the community team who need permission, direction to address our fragile local economy which continues to be over-reliant on visitor income and investor decision making to determine how our local wealth and economic situation develops.

Our Council officers need a clear mandate from the next generation of Councillors
to do more than endorse the estate agent function of the current administration.

We have significant spaces – some owned by our Council (and therefore owned by us!) which are underused, under-occupied and unimaginatively left vacant. Shops all over the centre of town have “To Let” signs adorning vacant space.
The vinyl solution of covering windows with pictures of busy things has been applied to the former Debenhams, but it’s fooling nobody. It’s just another shoddy deal, with a clumsy and lumbering administration, hopefully in its final days.
Folca is being cleaned of asbestos and tarted up as we speak, with only a vague concept of “business space” and a not-so-hidden agenda of shifting Council offices away from Castle Hill to allow yet another capital asset to be sold off with a semblance of economic action and housing.

We have the technology, as they say – but….
will we elect a team of councillors with the determination and imagination to go with the flow
and set out a vision for Folkestone Future?