Westwood success and failure

Yesterday whilst ferreting through my various e-mail inboxes, I came across a request for my opinions on regeneration, what's gone on, past, present, future that sort of thing which unfortunately for the enquirer, I was happy to give.

Later in the day, I found myself as a reluctant pedestrian in the heart of New Thanet (Westwood), looking around as I walked towards Pearce Signs roundabout, I marvelled at the genius of our local planners how they had given us shopping outlets that were slightly more classy than Primark, Peacocks and Quality Seconds and a gleaming new Homebase.

Out of curiosity, I thought I would crossover the Margate Road and see what had happened to the previous premises of Homebase, well as you can see from the above picture, nothing has happened, except now they don't bother to light the car-park in the evening.

Westwood Cross has in fairness, been a benefit to Thanet in terms of jobs, I wonder how developers justified the new 'sheds'for Homebase, Currys, Wicks seeing as the recently vacated premises don't look as if they will be occupied, in any hurry.

Developers and planners aren't infallible, how else can you explain how relatively recent retail space is now apparently redundant. Maybe these sites will return to manufacturing.

Perhaps those who decide what gets built where, may like to consider how vital and compelling the reasons, were for retail development was at the old Bowketts (bakers) site just maybe 15 years ago.

Of course it's not just recently built retail space that has suffered, as we all know Margate high-street has been decimated, as one old boy told me the last time he'd seen the high street as deserted, was in 1942.

I'd like to think, there's a strategic plan guiding Thanet towards a prosperous future, but the reality is, each project to regenerate seems to result in a degeneration elsewhere.

Maybe occasionally the planning authorities could just say No!