Our District

The District of Shepway is situated on the channel coast about 75 miles from London. It occupies a key strategic position as a gateway to continental Europe as is served by the M20 - which offers quick and easy connections to the major UK motoroway networks - the High Speed Rail Link, the Channel Tunnel and Lydd Airport.

The district has an area of 140 sq miles (35,700 hectares) and has a natural, high quality environment  with a number of distinct landscapes, communities and places of interest. The district is complex, often contrasting in terms of relative affluence and  deprivation, with dense urban environments and rural isolation, and it is always changing.

Shepway boasts a rich variety of attractive landscapes, from rollong chalk downland and wooded valleys to marshes.  It is fringed by fringed by the sea and has a coatsline of more than 20 miles. More than 33 per cent  of the district falls within the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and there are  numerous  wildlife sites and  Sites of Special Scientific Interest. There is a wealth of notable heritage spanning the whole of British history including Iron Age and Roman settlements; medieval churches; Tudor castles and Napoleonic fortifications.

Shepway is home to almost 100,000 people (National Statistics 2003 mid year estimate), 47 per cent of the population live in Folkestone and 22 per cent live in the towns of Hythe and New Romney. The remainder iive in the district's rual areas. n the rural The number of households is currently in the region of 47,500.

Twenty-three per cent of the population is aged 65 or over and there are 52 per cent  females as opposed to 48 per cent males. Ethnic minority groups make up 2.7% of the local population.

Unemployment at 3.1% is higher than the county average of 2.1% and the national average of 2.5% (Kent County Council Monthly Unemployment Bulletin January 2007).