The post you are reporting:
I am the partner of Mark Mason and have lived in Dover all my life. I am one of many generations that come from here. Dover has got worse over the years and nobody seems to want to do anything about it. It is ok to say "get off your backsides and do something about it" but in my opinion the powers that be don't seem to care about Dover and it seems they are the ones that need to get off their backsides and do something. We pay our council taxes, for what?? To have the public toilets taken away!!! We hear about lots of plans for Dover, but most of these ideas take business out of the center of Dover and put them on industrial estates out of Dover. This is ok if you have a car!!!! New business's don't seem to be able to last 2 minutes in the town! This is because there is hardly anyone in town to use these shops and the people with the money have taken it to Folkestone or Canterbury to spend it!!! How come money is spent on these towns?? Maybe those town councils don't want to run their towns into the ground!! The smaller shops should be given more support from the council to help them survive.
Public events seem to be kept a secret!!! No wonder there are poor turnouts. You seem to have to trawl the internet to find out any information!!
As for the "image" of Dover. I agree that the image needs to attract people, but what does the town center have to offer when they actually get here???
Now I have had a rant on only a very small part of what I think I would also like to say that Dover has some amazing things to offer, eg, the castle, the museum, the Roman painted house, the beautiful parks, the white cliffs and the Western Heights. Luckily lots of other organisations look after most of these places, including volunteers (lots of respect to the volunteers!!). I love Dover and would not like to live anywhere else, but it does make me feel very sad to see Dover becoming a ghost town!!!