The Old Town in Folkestone will be given a new lease of life after being promised a £1.3 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

More than £1.8m is to be invested into the area over the next five years, with Kent County Council and Shepway District Council making up the additional £500,000.

The application, which has been put together by KCC, SDC and the Creative Foundation, has been in the pipeline for more than a year.

It now means restoration work can be carried out on buildings in need of renovation to open them up to the community.

Shepway cabinet member for the economy, Cllr Alan Clifton-Holt, said: “This is fantastic news for Folkestone.

“This initiative will help to enable much-needed repairs and improvements to traditional buildings, and will encourage a greater understanding of the history and development of Folkestone, and the role the Old Town has played in it.”

The areas set to benefit from the cash are the Old High Street, Grace Hill, Rendezvous Street and Payers Park.

Creative Foundation chief executive, Alastair Upton, said: “We are really pleased that so much hard work on the bid has resulted in a successful outcome.

“Folkestone has already seen major transformation and clearly has exciting times ahead.”

Stuart McLeod, South East head of the lottery fund, said: “Investing lottery money to revitalise historic buildings at the heart of a community not only makes a place more attractive to live, visit and invest in, it also provides jobs and training opportunities for local people.”

Among the opportunities the scheme will support are building apprenticeships.

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