The post you are reporting:
As a resident, but also as Dover Business Support Manager, I walk up and down the proverbial High Street almost every day.
As Business Support Manager I know the highs and lows of Dover Town - I've photographed virtually all of it.
I have 3 dossiers of Dover's buildings and I've split them into the worst buildings; the ones that needs either new windows, repainting or something relatively minor doing to them and those in Castle Street.
The worst ones, I've sent to the Portfolio Holder at DDC asking, pleading with him, to take these worst ones up and action section 215 of the Town and Country Planning Act, where the LPA (local planning authority - in this case DDC) can force the Landlords to do up their run-down and dilapidated buildings.
There are other buildings in other Towns and villages that are (apparantly) much more important that those in Dover, so no, they won't take them up, well they "might" but not for a considerable time.
These 215 notices have to go through the legal team and DDC (any authority) have to be prepared, once the ball has started rolling, to see it through and this costs money, money that DDC do not have.
I have to say though that 90% of letters written, result in the landlord doing up their property, which then means of course that the cost to DDC would be minimal.
I am going to determine the owners - (the worst two (to my mind) are number 10 King Street and the side wall and above the front of the Best Kebab business in Cannon Street, Dover and write to them as DBS Manager.
The other ones that need some kind of refurbishment I am calling in personally to see.
Any Town Centre building that is scheduled to be part of DTIZ (and the most recent news is that ASDA are coming to Dover), will not have any work done on it until it is all sorted.
There are new planning applications being worked on for some other Town sites too.
The properties I've photographed in Castle Street, I have taken to David H. as he is Chairman of the Castle Street Society and he is going to chase the owners of those properties and get them tidied up.
Every Town, especially in this recession, has closed shops, but I'm damn sure they aren't all left in the state some of our's are.
I have met with the Mayor Sue Jones and some local artists and we are working on ways we can have the closed ones painted - some with banners, some with other artwork, so that the shops don't even look closed, people can walk passed them, just not go in them.
We need the co-operation of the agents and the landlords and some agents won't give out details of their landlords, so that's an extra hurdle to jump.
Many commercial buildings in Dover are owned by people who buy them at auctions and then leave them run-down and dilapidated.
I have agreemnet from Kent Highways that a quarterly chewing-gum cleaning schedule can be set up.
I also have agreement from the Community Pay-Back Team that the black flower tubs will be cleared of weeds and dog-ends and have new compost and flowers (supplied by DDC) planted.
This should have started the week before Christmas, but then it snowed and eventually when that had gone, it snowed again and then of course again - and now it's always raining.
I am working on bringing a proper market to Dover - around the Market Square and up Cannon Street and if enough stall-holders come, up Biggin Street too.
Co-operation has been offered by both the District and Town Councils, so good on them.
I have also been assisting businesses with other issues - business-rates, fire-risk assessments, promoting and marketing them through various means and when I have enough members (of Dover Business Support) I can start placing adverts in the local paper.
Business rates are the biggest bane of any (local) business, they are totally disproportionate to the level of trading, the business is doing and Dover businesses are not doing well.
If the Government and its VOA department do not change their rating system, then there will be more closed shops - there are many people who have created a good business plan, but at the end of the day, the rates kill it.
They're all happy to pay business-rates, it's that they are just so high and disproportionate.
And in between all the above, I am trying to recruit members to DBS, because without them, I can't do it.
Do you think all the above is worth £3.00 a week ? - the cost of membership of DBS. I do believe that if any business cannot afford this, even on a monthly S/O, then their business is indeed, in a parlous state, so then it would be that they don't support what I'm working on - 5, sometimes 6 days a week.
Roger
