Mermaid wrote:As a child I always considered Deal the poorer cousin to Dover, Deal always seemed old fashioned and scruffy.
Yes good post. I remember when Dealites would go on a shopping trip to Dover on a Saturday, not anymore. There is wide distrust and opposition of DDC in Deal these days - just look how quick they have back tracked on recent proposals to ban flowers from benches or engulf Walmer with beach huts. I even hear there is a community watch group proposed to monitor anything DDC does which could impact Deal.
Dovorians seem more supportive of DDC and its leadership. Certainly on here every time I criticise Mr Watkins it is met with disagreement. As Andrew rightly pointed out, Dover has so much potential and Dover & Deal working together to utilise their best assets could be world class. But to achieve this the local political landscape would have to change.
I firmly believe Dover needs to concentrate on its attributes and build a community devoid of any DHB involvement and then start protecting, enhancing and promoting these attributes to visitors and
media and then scale up. The DDC solution of just dropping large scale white elephant vanity projects into the town have so far done nothing to help.