The post you are reporting:
Slightly off-piste here, living eight miles along the road in Deal, but I'll throw in my two'pennorth anyway.
Noticed this morning that Deal high street precinct is looking increasingly desperate, boarded up, down-at-heel and actually quite intimidating.
Last night after work I walked through the M&S end of the precinct and none of the street lights were on. And with the former Strand pub and Currys Digital boarded up, not to mention that horrible feckless-yoof magnet pagoda (which should be pulled down, I reckon), it was definitely a case of looking over your shoulder. Very, very sad, when you think what Deal high street once was like, not very long ago at all.
And then this morning, on my way to work, I noticed that already a window of the empty Woolies has been smashed in and boarded up. What's more, there was a nice spray of vomit up the window of the former corner fashion store Select (now empty, natch) opposite the former Martins newsagents (also deceased).
Deal precinct has the potential to become a crime and ASBO magnet for rapacious know-nothing, care-nothing teen drones unless something is done fast, I reckon, such as even an enlightening art project (and Deal's full of arty-farts) on the swathes of chipboard that are rippling out along the main drag during this horrible, fast-growing recession.
Let's try at least to keep our civic pride even as this country goes down the tubes. Deal doesn't need its own version of Bench Street.