A major leap forward has been made in the sale of a giant £10m Kentish fort featured in a recent Sex Pistols drama.
A transfer has taken place of the 33-acre Citadel in Dover, which served as a former Napoleonic fortress.
Details of the buyer and their plans are scarce, but the sale has gone through despite the previous owners entering receivership.
Dover Citadel company director David De Min told KentOnline: “A transfer has taken place; the former owners are unable to provide further detail while legal and commercial matters remain active.
“There are active processes underway with advisers, so it wouldn’t be appropriate to go further right now.
“A wider update is expected once proceedings conclude.”
This means that, at this stage, while legal and commercial matters are still being cleared up, no details are being released about the buyer, price or contractual arrangements.
The fort, which later became a prison and borstal, was put on the market 14 months ago.
Matters were afterwards complicated by the owner company being served with a winding-up order last month, according to the official public record, the London Gazette.
Online documentation from the Gazette said the High Court of Justice in London made the order on December 17 following a petition by energy giant EDF.
This is an official court order that forces an insolvent company into compulsory liquidation. It is usually initiated by a creditor owed at least £750 and is used as a last-resort debt recovery measure.
The Gazette states that the company, registered in High Barnet, north London, faced a petition presented on October 14 by an organisation declaring itself a creditor. In this case, it was EDF Energy Customers Ltd, the UK supply arm of the French state-owned power giant Électricité de France.
Mr De Min told KentOnline: “This relates to a separate procedural matter raised by EDF. It is being addressed through the correct channels; legal advice is ongoing, so I can’t expand further at this stage.”
Dover Citadel Ltd took ownership of the site in January 2020 after purchasing it from the Ministry of Justice for £1.8 million.
Mr De Min added: “We made meaningful progress at the Citadel: restoring historic areas that had fallen into disrepair, opening parts of the site to the public for the first time in its history, and delivering heritage-led work in collaboration with Historic England, Dover District Council and other cultural institutions.
“We created a cultural platform that the site had never seen before, from film productions with Apple TV, Amazon, Marvel and other large-scale shoots.
“We opened the doors to emerging and young creative talent — artists, music projects, independent filmmakers and cultural practitioners — who used the fortress as a space for new work, energy and opportunity. We also opened the site up to specialist training access for the Marine Training Corps.
“I’m proud of the transformation delivered and the opportunities created on site.”
The Citadel, which now has 54 buildings, began as a fortification in 1779.
Its defences were beefed up, along with the surrounding steep hills of Dover Western Heights, during the Napoleonic Wars when an invasion by the French was feared. A series of ditches, forts and tunnels were built in the whole area.
It was then used as a defence for both World Wars and, in the 1950s, the War Office passed the centre to the Prison Service.
It first became an adult jail and from 1957 a borstal, in later years remodelled as a Young Offenders’ Institution.
Overall the maximum capacity for inmates was 850.
From April 2002 to November 2015 it was Dover Immigration Removal Centre, still run by HM Prison Service.
It housed about 600 adults appealing for official asylum seeker status – or awaiting deportation.
From the early 2000s, it also became a filming location.
In recent years it has been used for productions including the Sex Pistols TV biopic Pistol, directed by Danny Boyle. Marvel film Kraven the Hunter and a new series featuring Harry Potter star Tom Felton, focusing on the life of Mahatma Gandhi, were also filmed there.
Developments in the past decade have included the opening of the Citadel Welcome Café in summer 2024, located just outside the main entrance.
KentOnline has approached EDF Energy for comment.
