The post you are reporting:
Ah the same answers to the same questions
Where to start?
Well the biggest issue the town has is lack of employment and this needs addressing. The problem to addressing this is there is little or no incentive for any large business to start up iin a town that has c25,000 residents and where half the catchment area is water. So what is the answer?
The first thing to do is to decide what Dover wants to be? is it to be a declining industrial port town for ever? or should we be looking to reinvent it as a resort/destination? My own view is the latter, but this will require some serious money and infrastructure work and the total commitment of an open minded and supportive local authority. So what works am I suggesting? We need to develop the marina behind De Bradlei so it is lined with a mixed development of housing and holiday apartment blocks, we then need to build a land bridge that connects the town and its seafront, this should be sited from the area where the old Dover Stage Hotel was across to the area currently occupied by The Light of India, the closed multi storey car park demolished along with "Snoops" thus opening up a wide entrance into the heart of town, This of course changes the dynamic of the DTIZ and would require a rethink on design, but gives both DDC & its developer the opportunity to develop something that creates a real community in the heart of town,It needs to be a mixed development of streets of homes and streets of smallish shops with housing above. Yes by all means develop the hotel along Woolcomber Street as this will facilitate the removal of Burlington House.
We also need to enhance and develop the current tourism options in Dover, truly tying together the wealth of sites of historic interest and marketing them as a whole, combine this with the same thing for the natural history/landscape attractions and build some sort of world class leisure attraction (skate park, water splash centre, i.e. something that provides a different draw/appeal) and as visitor numbers grow retail will start to follow.
Of course we need to connect these sites together but that is better done with some form of circular shuttle bus service than a cable car that floats over the town the 30% of the year the weather allows it to run.
Alongside this the DTC & DDC need to ensure they work closely with private developers (e.g. station multi-storey car park and retail), existing business representatives (Town Team etc), community groups (e.g. Big Local) to facilitate and support their activities in making the town a better place to live work and play