Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Recobbled streets and a tree-lined ring-road without cars
As Canterbury city centre still struggles to find its feet after the Covid lockdowns, council leader Ben Fitter-harding imagines where it will be in 10 years’ time...
It’s 2031. My car, having driven itself while I was shaving and catching up on messages, has chosen one of the city’s peripheral car parks to spend the day in.
As I wait for the electric transit vehicle to collect me and take me into the city centre, autonomous pool cars are dropping off a steady flow of other workers, shoppers and visitors; some of which are then parking up for a charge as others head to the station to await the next high-speed train.
We board the transit and enter onto the ring road. Reclaimed by trees and soft landscaping, the only vehicles on it are other transits, electric buses from further afield and the occasional car ferrying a passenger with mobility issues.
I jump off at the Westgate and head into work. ‘My end’ of the city is still dominated by service businesses and restaurants, and I pick up a bag of fresh pastries for the team.
But even here there are signs of a new era of the high street.
Among the nail bars, hairdressers and barbers sits a makers’ market, where local skilled traders are selling but also making an array of beautiful items.
Across the recently recobbled streets, which wiped out a decades-long occupation by block paving, a virtual tours company sets off another group of ‘pilgrims for the day’, seeing Canterbury as it
was through the ages thanks to augmented reality glasses and digital guides.
Further up the high street, traditional retail has changed. I can still buy a new shirt and a case for my phone, but a blockchain-powered, eco delivery service called You Shop We Drop has eliminated the need to carry pretty much anything.
I still touch and try the products, but then I scan it or point it out to a member of staff and a brand new one will appear at a time of my choosing either at work or at home - along with the other items I’ve bought, from any of the city’s shops.
After work, there’s no shortage of things to do.
There are still escape rooms (which pleases me, since I’d brought the first one to Canterbury over a decade before), but there’s also neon ping-pong,
crazy golf, axe throwing and, would you believe, extreme glow-in-the-dark knitting; all accompanied by some kind of food and drink offering that makes blowing off steam after work fun and easy.
All of this sits within arguably the country’s most beautiful collection of historic monuments and stunning gardens, recently completely overhauled through successive rounds of Levelling Up / Shared Prosperity and private funding.
The visitor experience, known internationally as Canterbury’s Tales of England, has reversed years of declines in visitor numbers, and the local Council’s assets and museums are now part of a powerful heritage trust that reinvests money from the thriving visitor economy (it sells a pass that covers all of the city’s attrac
tions) into the very fabric of the city itself for everyone to benefit from.
Ten years is a long time and, as ever, much will change and much will stay the same.
But the policies of a forward-thinking, optimistic and ambitious Conservative council have allowed Canterbury to seize opportunities in the green economy and reduce carbon emissions faster than other parts of the country.
Better yet, the city is well positioned to deal with the one thing that is always guaranteed; change itself.
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