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The St James' area redevelopment plans (remember them? Quiet at the moment, isn't it?) should go back to the drawing board immediately. Asda (yes, remember that?) would simply replace the current urban carbuncles with more of the same (if in doubt, just look at the vile aesthetics-free lump that is the Folkestone one in Bouverie Square). And that's not even mentioning how much more hideous the emphysema-inducing traffic would become.
A more far-reaching and sympathetic solution for this benighted section of the town (and my word, has it got some rivals all over Dover) would be in part to re-create a semblance of the pre-War St James' area street pattern, like a more compact version of the North Laine district of Brighton (not 'The Lanes' but the 'North Laine' - look it up), with varied shops, restaurants, cafes, housing, a couple of boutique hotels and a couple of open public piazzas, reconnecting the Market Square area through an opened up Flying Horse Lane and Fishmongers Lane and Bench Street with Russell Street, Dolphin Lane and Woolcomber Street.
Whitefriars in Canterbury has done this 'reconnection' thing very well. Even the open space approach of Westwood Cross isn't so bad, either. Any archaelogical finds when excavating the St James' area (and boy, there'll be loads) should be either incorporated sympathetically into the redevelopment or at least visually referenced after their removal to Dover Museum, to act as a historical signposting of the redeveloped area.
And speaking of reconnecting parts of the town to each other, why not put the long-dead duck of the Charlton Centre out of our (sic) misery and thereby open up the gloomy, doom-laden and frankly scary area between its rotten self and the forthcoming Morrisons (oh yeah, remember that too?) superstore site, Maison Dieu Road and what passes for that bit of our High Street from the bottom of Tower Hamlets to the corner of Ladywell.
Then, and only then, should we start talking about flipping cable cars.
Lots to do, eh, whizzbang business brains out there? Best of.
Regards all,
Andy
