The post you are reporting:
Well, if I may.
-The fault must lie with Local and Regional Government, (for the same reasons that malaise on the national scale lies with National Government), because this is the one area where change is an option - on a regular and regulated basis, and where such change can be effected by the population themselves.
Dover is by no means a rural backwater in the way other smallish towns elsewhere in England are;off the beaten track. (Except that certain alterations to the transport structure have tended to make it so.)
To a degree Dover is a 'Bates Motel', in that during the times that it has grown and prospered Dover was very much identifiable with the port, but now it is a place of interest off to the side of the main thoroughfare.
-The general circumstances, whether laid down by Law or by Political colour, that could encourage confidence; brighten the fabric, make use of retail space and give the Town an air of 'bounce', and bring much needed manufacturing and service industry are shared with the Country as a whole and require fundamental readjustment. Basically, the apparent fact that it is cost-effective to leave property (domestic and retail) empty rather than busy and well maintained has to be addressed.
Nationally, our current Plan-A is so far removed from any Plan-D(over), and that this leaves us all listening to the Party-Political drivel of "Things will improve just as soon as things improve!", but the notion that we do not have the money is only half the problem, we also lack the vision and the drive. The latter 'half' of the problem is what all should insist be addressed by those seeking preferment in the imminent local elections.
