Trader on impact of St James retail park on Dover high street

Transcript

00:00This store used to be the prominent position of Dover in the high street.

00:03Now definitely it's the back end of the high street.

00:05When you think like McDonald's has gone, Woolworths has gone, and lots of stores have relocated

00:09to St. James's, there really needs to be a reason to come down this end and pretty much

00:15other than us in Argos, I don't think you'd probably come down here to go shopping really.

00:20So I think obviously everybody's moved down to St. James's, but the reason why we haven't

00:25is because the rent and the rates are so high.

00:28The businesses that moved down there, I don't think the town realised that the current businesses

00:32were going to relocate.

00:33I think they kind of expected new businesses to come in and expand on the town, but it

00:37didn't quite work like that.

00:38So it's a bit of a sad sight that this high street is kind of like all the empty shops

00:43and stuff like you see.