With its gateway location between the UK and Europe, and a diverse cultural scene that has won international acclaim, it’s no surprise the area has attracted major investment.
Folkestone
Folkestone offers a well-established opportunity for businesses to start-up or grow and recruit locally. With a supply of graduates from the county’s three universities and expanding further education and apprenticeship training provision, businesses can find talent at all levels.
This growing town offers a high-quality urban lifestyle. It has excellent connectivity to London and the Continent thanks to two High Speed 1 railway stations, good access to the M20 via three motorway junctions and the Channel Tunnel terminal. It is also just 15 minutes away from the UK’s largest and busiest seaport at Dover.
Folkestone is a growth hub for business, particularly for one of the UK’s fastest growing business sectors – creative and digital media. There is a cluster of successful arts and digital tech businesses around the Old Town and the Creative Quarter in high-quality business space, such as at The Workshop on Tontine Street, Motis Business Centre in the former Eurotunnel Exhibition Centre and at the Folkestone Business Hub in the town centre.
Hythe
Hythe has an active business community that supports existing commerce and new start-ups. Its close proximity to Folkestone West station means businesses can be in London within an hour.
There is accommodation for small businesses and opportunities in a wide range of premises, including converted farm buildings, to provide space for expanding businesses. Hythe is seeing significant investment in its hotels. The historic 19th Century four-star Hythe Imperial Hotel & Spa on the seafront at Princes Parade has already had a £1 million facelift and a further £3 million investment has been approved.
Award-winning Guy Hollaway Architects is based in Hythe, designing creative high-quality buildings locally, nationally and internationally. Its good schools, attractive Kentish townscape, beaches and fast transport links to London have helped Hythe to be a property hot spot.
Romney Marsh
Romney Marsh is a distinct and fantastic place to live and start-up a new venture, with its beautiful open landscape with huge skies and miles of coast making the area so appealing. New Romney, Lydd, Dymchurch and villages like Brookland and Newchurch, offer a blend of country town living, tradition and stunning shoreline.
The nuclear sector at Dungeness, tourism, agriculture and Lydd airport play important roles in the local economy, and the area’s Romney Marsh Partnership brings together strategic bodies to support economic development. Employment centres on the Marsh’s main towns of New Romney and Lydd with Mountfield Industrial Estate at New Romney providing high-quality accommodation for SMEs.
Mountfield Industrial Estate also offers the Romney Resource Centre with training and conference facilities, and the brand new Romney Marsh Business Hub which will open in early 2022 providing space and support for businesses. 5ha of employment land is currently being prepared for development at the estate, and this will be available in 2022, providing more space for growing businesses and those wanting to start up or relocate to the area.
North Downs
Part of the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, this part of our district lies between Folkestone and Canterbury and offers easy access to the M20, M2 and the Channel Tunnel. It is renowned for its many attractive villages such as Elham, Etchinghill, Lyminge, Lympne, Sellindge, Stelling Minnis and Stowting.
Hawkinge is the largest and has significant high quality housing planned alongside commercial development. The North Downs have been shaped by centuries of farming and rural enterprise and this designated Area of Natural Beauty (AONB) is an enchanting place with secluded wooded valleys and delicate chalk grassland that is rich in wildlife.
Affordable business accommodation is peppered around the North Downs plus there are a number of planned developments coming forward that will also increase supply in the future.
It is perfectly placed as a location to live, work, invest and visit, experience the extraordinary.
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