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A long post but I hope some of you find it interesting.
Along with other Councillors and Officers of DDC, I went on a Regeneration tour of Dover District today.
The sites we visited were:
Elysium Park Close, off of Old Park Hill, Dover
The Port Zone and what is happening there
MultiPanelUK at Eythorne
Hammill Brickworks site, Woodnesborough
Discovery Park, Sandwich
Betteshanger - Fowlmead Country Park and the Business Park
Sholden Fields Deal - housing development
Minters Yard
The Elysium Park development was good to see and at £190,000 for 2 beds and £250,000 for 3 beds, pretty good value really. I could see that people who currently live and work in London, could relocate here and enjoy a good life by the sea, perhaps some with no mortgage. Afterall, it has been said that we need people with money and disposable income.
We were told about the expansion of a number of businesses and development of others at the Port Zone.
On the way to Eythorne, we went past the old Manley House development - that looks very good and some good houses have been built on the old Royal Oak pub grounds.
MultiPanel UK at Eythorne have a very good product and is a very exciting venture with an investment figure of £12 million. Sales around the U.K. Europe, Australia, America and Canada - and they chose Dover District.
The next site we visited was the old Hammill Brick site at Woodnesborough. There will be live and work commercial units as well as other commercial units and 19 luxury houses, around ½ million up to about £700,000 - a very good project for the District.
The Discovery Park was our next place to visit. Pfizer still occupy 10% of the site in 3 buildings and have 650 people still working there, working on development (more than research). Patents have run out on many of there older drugs, but we were advised than many new ones are being developed that do and will, have new patents.
The site itself is now around 50% full and it is expected that in the not too distant future, it will be back to employing the 7,000 it once used to. It was stated that Sandwich needs to be within that magic hour of travel from London and this is deemed to be possible.
There's a business there that is doing research/evaluation on Omega 3 extraction from Algae - very clever.
There is also a fertility company in Sydney that wanted to find a site in Europe and after looking all over the place, settled on Sandwich - great for the District.
Our next visit was to Fowlmead/Betteshanger country Park and Business Park. Hadlow have a £40 million investment there and a very bright future too - another plus for the District.
The housing development at Sholden Fields - providing 2, 3 and 4 bedroom houses that are selling quite well. A good layout of housing with 60 something affordable homes.
The last stop was to Minters Yard in Deal. Seems to be a success too, all built units have now been taken.
A good and worthwhile trip round to visit all these sites - good news for Dover and there are many more being worked on.
Roger