Guest 2476- Registered: 2 Feb 2018
- Posts: 33
Just back from another depressing perambulation of the town centre.
Just a sample of today's issues. A lamentable lack of any kind of pavement-style cafe/bar facility in the town's hub since the closure of the post-Ellie incarnations and Dickens Corner. So an intelligent conversation that was available even last year in a sunshine-lit piazza, when the weather finally relents for the literally three-months annual window (at best) that our terribe climate allows, is no longer an option, as my interlocutor has had enough of the noise and decline and moved to Deal.
A busload of cruise passengers pile into Illy cafe, so at least someone is getting the business.
Talking of Deal, I find the picture-framing service in Tower Hamlets has gone bust and will have to go to Deal to find one, thus putting money I would have spent in Dover into another town's coffers. I feel mildly cheered by the sight of shops preparing to open at St James before I reflect that they will just leave even more holes in the High Street.
I don't bother with the seafront as the piledriving is cranking up again. Head for vagrant-blighted Pencester Gardens, where some of Dover's numerous socio-eco0nomic casualties flock, dominating the space, in un-easy co-existence with a few tourists.
I really thought that DTIZ would lead to a better town. we have at least finally eliminated an aching urban wasteland and what appeared to be Western Europe's last bomb crater, a jungle-type of affair where allegedly illegals went feral.
The space 9St James) is attractive enough and we have a shiny new cinema, but what else? A Next and a Nando's if that's your thing, a decent and sunny Costa, and a few shops we already had, mostly unprepossessing chains. The overall effect of the various openings and closures is to leave the town feeling even more desolate, corporate, joyless and alienating.
I hear Burger Bros might have stayed but DDC refused planning permission to have chairs and tables in the courtyard outside.
A similar post a while ago mysteriously disappeared. I expect this will also go but sorry I am just calling it as I see it. If it breaches forum Ts and Cs, kindly let me know how.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
I have to disagree with much of the above as I find the bit from Market Square through Bench Street and King Street booming with restaurants, pubs and a micro pub. Dickens Corner we know now as being brought back to use. I seem to remember Burger Bros trying it on and wanting unlimited tables and chairs that would cause an obstruction in Market Square. I agree about the street drinkers but our problem is no different from other towns around the country. The framer in Tower Hamlets decided to retire he didn't go bust.
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Guest 2476- Registered: 2 Feb 2018
- Posts: 33
I look forward to Dickens Cortner being re-opened but why is it taking so long?
Yes the Turkish restaurant is a positive but the lack of a credible pavement cafe bar in the Market Square really is a letdown.
Re: Templar Arts, there was a sign of the door saying it had ceased trading from 1 April. The young guy running it did not look close to retirement.
Ross Miller
- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,707
The problems of the Ellie/Port of Call are a landlord who has failed to carry out adequate repairs to his property for a number of years and a number of tenants who were either inconsistent in terms of opening or quality or overpriced or all 3. It is easy to get permission to put seating outside a cafe, but you do need to ask first rather than assume then demand.
Le Salle Vert & The Mean Bean both have streetside seating and are both doing very well, through hard work and providing what their customers ask for. I suspect that Dickens Corner will also provice streetside seating once the new tenant moves in.
There is a very good plan in place to revamp Market Square and the streetscape up to Pencester it is just awaiting the relevant decisions on funding.
DDC has started to talk to property owners in the town about ensuring their buildings are maintained, is working with DTC to issue S215 notices where necessary and has stated it will resort to the courts if necessary and it is also working with a number of parties to develop solutions to the retail offer in the town.
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Droid wrote:I look forward to Dickens Cortner being re-opened but why is it taking so long?
Yes the Turkish restaurant is a positive but the lack of a credible pavement cafe bar in the Market Square really is a letdown.
Re: Templar Arts, there was a sign of the door saying it had ceased trading from 1 April. The young guy running it did not look close to retirement.
There are enough posts about Dickens corner without me adding to it. I used Templar Arts three years ago and the chap was around the 60 mark so I presume he sold it to someone who couldn't make a go of it.
Guest 2476- Registered: 2 Feb 2018
- Posts: 33
The post is clearly not just about Dickens Corner.
I am just reporting on the lack of venues where you can enjoy the simple pleasure of a coffee in a street-facing open space in relative peace and quiet. Or any public space without unbearable noise pollution or anti-social behaviour. Which rather rules out the seafront, and Pencester Gardens, along with other venues I mentioned.
Let's hope DC returns before we are too far into the summer.
Guest 1831- Registered: 1 Sep 2016
- Posts: 395
Well in Dover you have to look for the sublime and then ridiculous
The Marine Hotel has seating for coffee etc. in the sun and fairly peaceful. Lots of overseas visitors to chat to.
The seafood outlet. on the promenade, opposite Granville Gardens. Offers a cracking cup of coffee, for a £1.00.
Further down to the Eastern Arm. Our newly elected Mayor and her jolly helpers, have decent all round offerings. Seating and good views, in the sun. Place is called Pebbles.
Captain Haddock
- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,167
Yacht Club still v pleasant. No riff raff. Discrete nautical tattoos only. Great views. Free use of ear defenders for members.
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Guest 1292- Registered: 23 Jun 2014
- Posts: 23
Discreet or discrete? Makes a difference Captain, as I am sure you know. Maybe you don't. Mind, I like to think "our" Councillors are familiar with the nuances of our language.
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,167
Yup. Definitely discrete - each one separate and defined. I know this because I used to teach Discreet Mathematics an an AS subject ....
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Guest 1292- Registered: 23 Jun 2014
- Posts: 23
Hahaha! Ingenious (or maybe not) escape! I doff my cap at your semantic acrobatics.
But then, I only taught English. Always found it much more interesting than Mathematics but forgive me, it was only at Degree level.
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TheThinWhiteDuke- Registered: 7 Jul 2016
- Posts: 359
Captain Haddock wrote:Yacht Club still v pleasant. No riff raff. Discrete nautical tattoos only. Great views. Free use of ear defenders for members.
Ahhh. So that's where all of the owners of the nice yachts berthed in the marina spend their moolah then.
So much obvious money sitting on the water there. I always wondered what happened to it/where it went.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
a hint of a tax dodge there.
Guest 2476- Registered: 2 Feb 2018
- Posts: 33
Dover Marina Hotel has been ruined, along with other seafront venues, by the interminable piledriving.
I am not going to tolerate the intolerable and neither should anyone else.
When IS this sonic pestilence coming to an end?
Yacht Club is a private members club and suffers from the severe noise disturbance like everywhere else. Anyone who says they are not bothered by it is either lying or has something wrong with them. And you can say the same about a lot of things in Dover. I think we have put up with so much here for so long we have become numb to it.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
Nothing can be done about the noise till the work is done,there is still two years of work left.But when all is done it will look great against what we have now, I was born in Dover in 1942 just hope I AM still about to see the day it is all done.
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Guest 1467- Registered: 30 Jan 2015
- Posts: 149
I agree the piling is awful, but we have to bear the pain of course, to reap the benefit and I am sure it will as Vic says look great when complete. There appears to be more works gone on in the town and its surrounds in the last couple of years, since Hitler was knocking on our door. I think in another four or five years, the town will be unrecognisable from the Prince Albert down. It seems to have real impetus now. That's my view from being here 60 years!
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Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
Mr Jones sir ,I think we both are thinking in the right way,it has been a very long time coming but at last Dover is on the up still some way to go yet but it is getting there, what we need to see now is more police on the streets and taking action when the need be but not by just moving them on but in the courts , but the courts also have a big part in all this by bigger fines and jail if need be, we wait and see.
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