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    LoveDover is a Dover Town Council initiative. As I understand it:

    A sum of money has been allocated to an new Charitable Incorporated Organisation (LoveDover)(application to Charity Commission made) which will purchase Freehold commercial property in the Town Centre. It will then separate the often dilapidated or no longer needed for commercial purposes Upper Parts of the building, converting them to residential units which will then be sold off to fund the next project. The Freehold would be retained and the shop renovated and let either fully commercially or for a community project. This way the rateable value would be smaller because the whole building will no longer be in rating for business rates; the street (most likely from Market Square to Biggin Street initially) will begin to look smarter and the shop(s) will become affordable and have the benefit of having a Landlord that is not absent and/or a faceless corporation with constantly changing staff who know nothing and care even less about Dover.

    The project will make slow progress to start with I guess (having been involved in the CIO application for the DCA, it is a longwinded process), but is a better idea than anyone else has come up with to TRY and tackle the desperation we see every day in our current "prime shopping area".

    As an aside, it also shows that the Town Council is taking very seriously the state of the Town now, during and after DTIZ and is, contrary to the negative spin it always gets on this forum, doing something really positive for the centre of Dover. I expect this will be a difficult task and have its critics, but at least something is being done! Full marks to the Mayor and DTC, something good to get behind.

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