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    Thankyou Sue, and to everyone who popped in to see the exhibition and provided feedback.

    In response to yours above Sue - the seats....they need to be secure but removable so that we can create a flat open space to put on more special events and markets in this area during the course of the year. Certainly the project can look at the final design to determine if seat backs are practical for this type of seating.

    The beds, yes, they create an obstruction and a barrier with the road. However, they also limit what can be achieved in the space and will interrupt the ability to project full height lasers through the water feature when that is being used to show Dover's story. The flower bed barrier is being replaced with a line of granite balls and the pre-existing granite benches that are placed around the old fountain will be re positioned to sit as a semi-porous barrier between the water feature and the granite balls/roadway.

    The purpose of the project is to revitalise the Market Square area and extend the period of time that it is in use each day, hopefully attracting footfall from the St James area and increasing its utility to support new jobs as well as helping to retain the jobs that are already there in our traditional High St. A key part of this job is achieved by having an attractive and interesting feature that tourists and locals alike can interact with, enjoy and photograph. Even when the Sputnick fountain was working, the area was quite sterile with little opportunity for the public to interact (in a legal way) with features in the area, certainly nothing that would have even the faintest chance of drawing visitors to the leisure and retail at St James across the road to our traditional heart. Creating a new, interactive, water feature is a key element of the project and the ability to use lasers to begin to tell our own unique story could help with the early evening economy at certain low points for trade and retail during the course of the year. Placing the water feature at the seafront or in Pencester, whilst it might be nice to have such a feature in these locations, leaves the Market Square as a sterile empty zone, does nothing to attract footfall towards our traditional High St. and undermines the reasoning for the entire bid, which is to create new direct and indirect employment, extend daily use times, even out some of the seasonality and support existing jobs in and around the Market Sq and into the traditional High Street.

    I don't disagree that the area was a busier more bustling place in the 1980's with full traffic access and flowers on the roundabout, but returning to this situation is, unfortunately, impractical and beyond the means of the Town Team and scope of this bid to the Coastal Community Fund.

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