There’s nothing more dispiriting in a high street than the sight of an empty, boarded up shop. Sadly, it’s something that a lot of high street visitors across the country have become accustomed to seeing at the moment. The collapse of established high street names such as Zavvi and Woolworths and the closure of a host of smaller stores due to the downturn has created prominent gaps at the heart of many town centres.

Dartford has been affected by this in recent years, and one of the things that I have noted in my post bag is the increasing number of letters and emails that I receive from constituents expressing concerns about Dartford town centre.  People raise concerns with me about the future of the town, whether or not Tesco and its Lowfield Street development are to go ahead, and at a very basic level, whether or not the people responsible for the town's centre actually care about it anymore.

When I campaigned against the council's original re-development proposals for Lowfield Street, one of the things that struck me was the lack of consultations held by authorities on what people actually wanted for their town centre.  The resultant uproar over the proposed road through Central Park showed that the council had got it wrong on this occasion, wasting a valuable opportunity to re-invigorate the town.  Whilst the second proposal did at least take into account some public opinion, the delays in producing this scheme meant that it has been held up for a significant period of time, meaning that Dartford has suffered.

Given this, I decided to carry out a consultation of local people, asking them what they actually thought about Dartford town centre, what they believe made it special, what put them off visiting, and what could be done to bring them back into the town.

Whilst the actual consultation has been completed, you can view the survey sent to people by clicking on the menu to your left.  Please feel free to submit your opinions if you wish as I am still very interested in hearing anything people have to say on the town centre's future.