Terry Preston: Right in 1974, Right Now

It was a pleasure to see former Councillor Terry Preston at the Folkestone and Hythe District Council Christmas meeting on 18th December.

At that meeting, after months of calls by the Liberal Democrats and others for the District Council to move beyond the previously announced Council house building progamme or 300 houses over 5 years, David Monk announced he was now going to push for 1,000 new Council homes to be built over the next 10 years.

This is clearly excellent news for the district - as long as this is on top of a large investment in our existing council housing to bring it up to a good standard after the issues of management around east Kent Housing. Between the two, we believe this should transform Council Housing in Folkestone and Hythe for generations.

And I was delighted when Terry emailed me today to both welcome that news himself, and included some newspaper cuttings of him calling for new and better Council homes - in 1974, when he was a lone Liberal voice on the then Shepway District Council. It's humbling to think Terry was talking about these issues 45 years ago. i was one year old then, and Terry was right then, and right now.

Thanks for the cuttings Terry. We'll aim to keep up the work you started!