After causing a furore among local residents when contractors began clearing trees and vegetation from the north side of the Royal Military Canal, Folkestone & Hythe District Council began ground investigation work on the development site. The investigations, which involve drilling and excavation, are scheduled to last five weeks.
According to F&HDC this work will be noisy and generate “some odour” from “deposited materials”. We assume that this refers to waste from the time the area was used as landfill. There are no reliable records of what may be buried there but past ground surveys show evidence of asbestos, heavy metals, oil and hospital waste. The council’s press release says “all operatives are trained and may be required to wear masks and paper suits as a safety precaution”.
That will be a sight to see as we take a stroll along Princes Parade in the coming weeks!
There are few details on the safeguards for the wildlife and once more we need to be concerned about how it will suffer at the hands of the council and its contractors.
You can read the “Site Investigation works – Technical Note” from the contractors here (pdf) for more details.
The stated purpose of the site investigation is to work is “inform the works required to prepare the area (above) for leisure facilities and accessible open spaces” – no mention of 150 homes, hotel, shops, moving the road… etc