Controversial plans have thrust a notorious area of Dover back into the spotlight. But does it deserve its unwelcome reputation?

Here, KentOnline reporter Sam Lennon speaks to residents along Folkestone Road and gives his own perspective on whether the street - where he was once attacked - really is as “rough” as its detractors claim…

From shoplifters swiping boxes of cola, to brawls spilling into her store, Londis manager Renu Jain is kept busy at the Folkestone Road branch.

The Dover street - which is rarely out of the news - is back in the spotlight now because of plans to turn a home into another guest house there.

Residents fear this could exacerbate issues with drugs, crime and anti-social behaviour in the area.

Mrs Jain, of the White Cliffs Londis store, says Folkestone Road has a reputation for being “rough” and some families want to move away.

“Some people are rough, sometimes rude,” she told KentOnline this week.

“Sometimes they just come and nick things and just go without paying.

“We had a full box of cola once and they just grabbed it and ran.

“One person came and asked for health bars and then for cigarettes and when I turned [to get them] they just took the health bars and ran away.

“Folkestone Road has been said to be a rough area. There are people with families who do not want to live here.”

Mrs Jain, who lives in Canterbury and has been running this store for six to seven months, says if there is no improvement she will try to transfer to another shop.

“About a month ago two people were fighting,” she said. “One ran inside and they were assaulting each other and I had to call the police.”

Police data shows that last March in the eastern part of Folkstone Road, where Londis is, and its side streets there were 55 crimes.

These included 32 violent or sexual assaults, as well as 22 cases of criminal damage and arson and four cases of anti-social behaviour.

Yet in the nearby town centre, east of York Street, there were 116 crimes in total that month.

All this is within the Town and Castle Dover District Council ward, which is considered deprived.

The western half of Folkestone Road, within the Maxton and Elms Vale ward, had just eight crimes during the same month.

‘Too many guest houses’

The new guest house was approved by Dover District Council’s planning committee at its meeting on Thursday - despite concerns being raised by residents.

On the council’s planning portal, neighbour Gill Neary wrote: “Littering, flytipping and general dilapidation are clear to see in other properties similar to this one, not only affecting the main road, but also the alleyways behind.

“Anti-social behaviour including drug use will likely increase, as it has done every time. There are already sufficient commercial guest houses operating in this close area who are not, as far as I am aware, struggling with over-occupancy.”

Meanwhile, Vincent Whittle wrote that locals already endure anti-social behaviour.

“Our front garden was littered with cigarette butts and spliffs thrown out of bedroom windows,” he said.

Neighbour Justine Laws told the council meeting: “There is a strong odour of drugs wafting down the road day and night.”

The scheme is for eight bedrooms at the property. Applicant Bongani Jansen, of Lynwood Homes Ltd in Enfield, London, stressed this would never be a house in multiple occupation.

He told the meeting that order would anyway be kept by staff supervision and added: “It would be managed by me and other staff 24 hours a day.

“We want to create a guest house affordable to everyone.”

The application was voted through on condition that no guests could stay for more than six weeks.

‘I don’t think it’s that bad’

Despite the fears raised by some residents - not everyone thinks it’s such a bad place to live.

One local businessman on Folkestone Road, who did not want to be named, told KentOnline he has lived and worked in the area trouble-free for 27 years.

“Litter and rubbish is a problem here. But I think there is a perception about levels of crime and anti-social behaviour and I don’t think it’s that bad,” he said.

“For example, in all my time here my car has never been broken into and neither has it happened to my customers.”

Meanwhile Dr Abiola Idowu, of the street’s White Cliffs Medical Centre, said: “We enjoy working here and our doors are open to everyone.

“One thing unique about this surgery is our walk-in clinic for our regular patients.”

Others have tried their best to brighten up Folkestone Road over the years - and resist the creation of too many HMOs.

“That was changing the face of the then Priory ward - now within Town and Castle -. which in itself was listed as one of the most deprived areas,” says former councillor Keith Sansum

“Over the years I had to counter the negativity with positive ventures where I deliberately set up a ‘best kept gardens’ competition just to highlight a positive on the area for local peoples sake.”

Residents’ groups such as the Priory Forum have also been set up to improve the area.

But Mr Sansum - who was a ward councillor for the area over four decades, between 1987 and 2019 - added: “It has over the years been allowed to deteriorate.

“Look at Folkestone Road today and the alleys behind it with bed spreads dumped throughout together with rubbish. It looks awful.”

‘A history of violence’

The present Folkestone Road was created in 1783 as a toll road with a tollhouse at the junction with the present Elms Vale Road. The turnpike continued until 1877. The spot is now landmarked with a Grade II-listed preserved tram shelter.

There are at present 10 hotels, hostels and guest houses directly on Folkestone Road.

Locals believe this originates from it once being one of only two direct routes from London and the rest of Kent, the other being the A2.

It is also right next to Dover Priory Station and close to the docks, so travellers would have needed nearby overnight accommodation before sailing on to the Continent.

The opening of Jubilee Way in 1977 created a major new alternative route in the port but Folkestone Road remained part of the A20, which goes all the way to New Cross in south London.

It was replaced at the Dover end by the present clifftop road in November 1993.

At the turn of the Millennium, Folkestone Road was nicknamed Asylum Alley by some of the national press because of the high number of refugees accommodated there in bedsits and bed and breakfast houses.

In autumn 1999 there were an estimated 750 asylum seekers in the town - but still only making up 0.4% of its population.

These were mainly people from the former Yugoslavia, Kurds (mainly from Iraq), Afghans, and Roma people from eastern Europe.

Racial tension mounted and in the worst case a full-blown gang battle took place that summer in Pencester Gardens, when at least one man was severely slashed on the body.

An article from 1999, published on the Institute of Race Relations website, reports that asylum seekers on Folkestone Road were pushed in front of moving cars and battered with iron bars.

Mr Sansum added: “From a government and council point of view it was easy to house asylum seekers on the Folkestone Road but there was poor planning.

“We had to meet the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw, in Dover to try to relieve the explosive situation that was fast occurring .

“Members of the tabloid press didn't help by running out of date and negative stories on Folkestone Road for years to give the impression it was a run-down no-go area.

“So people across the country were given the impression it was a place to avoid.”

Local people at the time said they felt intimidated by large groups of young asylum seeker men congregating in street corners. Police explained it was part of the gregarious culture in the countries they came from.

Between 2000 and 2004, the British government had a dispersal policy for asylum seekers, so fewer stayed in Dover and they were spread further out into the country.

‘I’ve had my own scrapes along Folkestone Road’

I have been a Dover resident for 36 years and have seen the changes and turmoils in Folkestone Road, including being in two violent situations there.

Firstly dodging the stones of rioters, secondly being attacked in the street at night, leading to a broken arm.

In the first instance, I was there covering a notorious episode in the road’s history, the day a march by the far-right over asylum seekers ended in full-scale rioting.

On January 30, 2016, groups such as the National Front stepping off the train from Dover Priory station were confronted by so-called anti-fascist protesters.

I was following the left-wing faction and was one of those dodging stones falling from the sky as they were hurled by the far-right.

The left-wing threw missiles back and one woman scolded me: “I hope you’re going to report that they (the far right) were throwing stones first.”

Actually, I was too busy looking up at the sky to watch for the next rock to dodge before it bashed my skull.

I avoided getting hurt but violence spilled into the town centre and I remember the extraordinary scene of protesters completely swamping the petrol station forecourt near Effingham Street.

In the end 64 people received jail sentences from the courts totalling 85 years, some suspended.

In the second violent situation I was not so lucky. I had tried to take pictures of a disturbance outside a town centre pub on New Year’s Eve 2018.

Those responsible threatened me and made me back off - but my path crossed with them again as they were on their way to catch the train out of Dover.

One came up behind me, at Folkestone Road outside the Alma hostel, and punched me square on the back of my neck, making me fall forward and break my left wrist.

The louts walked past as I was sprawled on the ground - I was lucky I was only struck once and left behind.

Despite this, and people's continued worry of crime at Folkestone Road, I have no fear of walking there at night, even after the attack. It is usually dead quiet and the group that targeted me didn’t even live in the area.

Even in the days of “Asylum Alley”, I walked past large groups of asylum seekers who left me alone.

Folkestone Road may be seen as a place of strangers,. The people in the mass of flats and bedsits cut into the large Victorian houses seem to have no clear community meeting place. There are no more pubs directly on this long road.

In the late 1980s many locals could meet in places like he Engineer at the corner of Malvern Road, but that is long gone and replaced by housing.

The Orange Tree at Maxton is also gone and the Webbs’s Hotel, which opened as late as 1989, lasted only 17 years before it was knocked down.

That had been used as a local audition centre for the Cilla Black TV game show Blind Date.

Even the Alma pub is now a hostel. That was reputedly used as a haunt for striking seafarers during their bitter 1988 dispute against the then P&O European Ferries.

The only nearby pubs are the Malvern up the hill on the Clarendon estate and the Priory Hotel on Station Approach Road.

A great improvement for Folkestone Road was its end as a lorry route when the present A20 was created in 1993.

Buildings had been blackened and shaken by the thundering, polluting juggernauts.

The truckers had to lumber around parked cars and slowed up the progress of frustrated local drivers.

Motorists would try to get ahead and past by speeding up on the parallel Old Dover Road further along at Capel-le-Ferne.

So what is Folkestone Road like now? Despite complaints of litter on the road I found it reasonably clean and only four cases of fly-tipping on the back alleys I walked - and some were spotless.

The area has also been freshened up in places by new housing development.

For example, the former Christ Church near the station was a ruin in the late 1980s but has long since been replaced by the flats of Christ Church Court.

Folkestone Road has its problems - but crime and drugs are everywhere and nearly all the time you can walk along it safely, including at night.

I’ve done it many times - so what happened that New Year’s Eve was a freak occurrence.