David Wimble sits on Kent County Council’s Cabinet, holds seats on Folkestone and Hythe District Council and New Romney Town Council, and has declared his ambition to stand as Reform UK’s parliamentary candidate for Folkestone and Hythe. He presents himself as a serious public figure.
But according to an investigation by Shepway Vox, the local watchdog publication that has tracked Wimble for over a decade, the Reform councillor has two outstanding County Court judgments against him for unpaid debts.
Together they represent £1,556 in debts that remain, by the court’s own definition, unpaid or only partly paid.
‘Migrant emergency’
As we reported earlier, Wimble was the proposer of Kent County Council’s “Illegal Migration Emergency” motion last month.
The motion was initially pulled from the agenda by a senior council officer over concerns it risked breaching electoral law, timed to influence the then upcoming by-election in Cliftonville.
Reform councillors pushed it through anyway, with more than 30 opposition councillors walking out in protest.
Wimble, who is Reform’s Kent County Council Cabinet member with responsibility for Economic Development and Special Projects, once told a council meeting that numbers had “never been my big thing.”
That line, reported by Shepway Vox in April 2025, has since acquired a certain grim reality.
Track record
It sits alongside a track record that includes council tax arrears confirmed by Folkestone and Hythe District Council in 2019; driving a vehicle with no valid tax or MOT that same year; an interview under caution over alleged electoral violations in 2020; conflict of interest questions about a £19,000 High Street Fund application in 2022; and a steady accumulation of complaints about factual accuracy in the Looker, a local publication he edits.
Endorsement
Reform nevertheless continues to promote Wimble as a proven local champion and a strong voice for Romney Marsh. Its local website still carries his endorsement.
The question Shepway Vox puts, and which Reform has yet to answer, is a straightforward one: what standard does a councillor have to fall below before his party notices?
