Next phase of Dartford town centre’s £12 million regeneration to begin
Work on the next phase of upgrade works to the public realm in Dartford is due to begin on 28 April.
The £12 million project aims to improve various areas of the town centre. Funding is from the Homes and Community Agency (£7.7 million) and Local Growth Fund (£4.3 million).
Phase 1a will cover Dartford High Street and include:
- resurfacing the High Street with natural stone paving
- improve access to the street on market days
In addition shop frontage improvements will be made via a separate funding pot.
Phase two will cover Instone Road and Highfield Road and include work on junctions to maintain accessible gateways to the town centre with Dartford stating: “This phase will involve the introduction of technology to manage queuing, link the junctions and to improve pedestrian and cycle flows”.
Funding
The Funding Agreement for the project was signed in August 2018 with the project is divided into five phases. Building work on Phase 1 covering Market Street begun in May 2019 and is now mostly complete. A time lapse video of the project can be seen here.
Granite paving is to be used for the latest phases of the project. Work was due to begin in January but was delayed after high initial tenders returns during the pandemic last year. The project was re-tendered with a £600,000 saving achieved according to Dartford Council.
Fresh start
After many years of decline steps are in place for Dartford to turn the corner. Many new homes are being built bringing millions to Dartford Council and footfall to town centre shops, pubs and restaurants. A cinema, shops and homes are planned at the former co op.
Lowfield Street is seeing new homes after a decades of inaction as Tesco sat on land.
Street upgrade measures aim to improve the look of the town centre, which alongside new residents moving to the town should assist town centre business. With so many newcomers to the town, there’s now a real chance for the struggling centre to thrive. Many shops are a quick walk away. Bluewater badly hurt the town centre, but there’s now some real sign of things being on the up.
All very well to keep building new developments, but what about the resources. IE doctor’s, dentists, hospitals, school’s.
Too much traffic. And what about nature? Lose that and you lose everything else. Soon it will be a concrete town.
New builds do enable dentists, doctors etc to live in an area. I know a doctor who moved to a new home in Dartford and now works at Darent Valley. Same with teachers and many other professions. Many new homes are near good amenities given town centre locations, on brownfield land and with services it’s up to the local authority to allocate S106 and CIL funds, and if additional central government funding is too low it doesn’t matter if 10 or 10000 residents. These new homes also give existing shops and business a much better chance. Let’s be positive.
Good to see Dartford being regenerated as Murky says it will be good for local shops and businesses in the area and provide more footfall in the town centre.
Lesley Shaw is actually talking about new amenities like new doctors surgeries, dental practices schools etc for the new residents that will move to Dartford as the local population grows and existing practces meet their qouta of patients.
Like with Greenwich Borough we are seeing thousands of new homes built with more in the planning but with no real improvement to local amenities and the public transport infrastructure.to cope with the growing demand.
New homes bring new income via s106 and CIL specifically for that purpose. To expand existing services and provide new. Central Government also need to invest alongside.
Complaining against new homes on brownfield and in towns will see more existing family homes converted to house shares – often below the radar.
That does nothing for improved services nor families.
Too many people in such small places. You didn’t listen properly to the comment I have made. This is getting all too over populated. It takes for ever too even try to see a doctor, and my hospital clinic keeps being cancelled.
Come on now. THINK.
For goodness sake it’s not overpopulated. It’s mostly disused brownfield and the town has always grown. And lose the attitude. Why is it taking too long? It’s so easy to blame new homes rather than actually look a bit deeper. Here’s something that may shock you – areas with little to no new homes are also seeing the problem. Could it be a lack of investment?
I’m glad you agree with me, and are actually seeing the real picture.
Some people don’t, and just go on about more housing to be built no matter what.
Nobody on here has said that and nobody in day to day life says that. Those who seek new housing almost always state the need for improved services.