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Bob - I totally disagree with virtually every word that you said in that last post.
This development started with the same old Dover story, repeated failure of schemes to develop this important site due to a lack of commercial viability as a result of Dover's demographics and the costs of the site.
Paul Watkins was Council leader at the time and I was the Chairman of the Technical Services Committee.
If it was not for the WCE then this site would remain derelict to this day.
The original concept was to include the Roman Painted House in a much bigger project that would have brought Dover's Roman and more recent past alive. Sadly we had a luddite acheaologist who was a purist and adamantly opposed to projects such as this and Yorvik and he did everything he could to scupper the development and any modern historical interpretation. In the end he fell foul of his professional body, partly because of the insults he threw at the very eminent top archeaologists that were brought in to advise and help with the site. Sadly though he did manage to prevent the much bigger and better scheme from progressing and we can see what a sorry state the Roman Painted House display presents today.
The White Cliffs Experience itself was to break the impass over the site and the building design brief was for a building that could be multi-purpose and used for something else once the experience past its sell-by-date.
The idea was to have a critical mass of visitor attractions in Dover to pull people into the town centre where they might spend money, whether down from the castle, people on the way to and from the ferries or 'weekenders'. With the WCE, museum and Old Town Goal we had a viable tourist strategy.
The WCE itself was designed by John Sunderland who designed Yorvik. You are very disparaging about the exhibition but it was designed for families including children with an activity centre, the Sid Seagull Show and other elements to appeal to the more serious minded, the chalk cliffs display on entrance for instance. Howard is right, it did win a lot of awards.
As I say if it was not for this development this site would be derelict, we would not have the museum, the Bronze Age Boat Gallery or the cinema (however small and inadequate its better than nothing).
When it opened in 1991 it was in the depth of a recession and it was badly hit but nevertheless did bring many visitors to Dover. (Someone I met in Maidstone recently asked me about it, saying how much they enjoyed it and expressed disappointment that it is closed)
The WCE was kept going long after a fresh use should have been found for the building by the 1995 (not 1997) Labour regime that took control. Incidentally, the Consevatives lost control over DCC in 1993 after losing a Whitfield by-election and a Lib/Lab pact took over.
