Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Change afoot after city’s resilience in Covid-hit year
While the pandemic has impacted all of our lives in one way or another, council leader Ben Fitterharding believes Canterbury will continue to fight back better than most in 2022. Joe Wright reports...
About seven million people are estimated to have walked along Canterbury’s high street during a turbulent 2021 - a year in which the city has faced unavoidable struggles.
Now, as we move into the new year, there are hopes of “bigger reach and bigger ambition” for Canterbury.
Among the major projects are the Riverside development at Kingsmead, which is due to be complete in the spring, and a £1.2 million makeover of the city’s high street.
There will also be the launch of a bid for £20 million to transform a number of Canterbury’s heritage assets.
But the success of the city hinges on the amount of people it can draw in, and figures for 2021 prove positive against the national picture.
At the start of December, the number of people recorded on the high street was 14.6% lower than the levels documented pre-pandemic in 2019.
But this is 4% better than the UK average, and on par with other historic cities dotted around the country.
There are also fewer empty shops than most areas nationally, with Canterbury’s vacancy rate of 10.3% lower than the UK average of 11.7%.
The biggest ‘white elephants’ remain at the sites of the former Debenhams and Nasons stores, where regeneration projects have been stalled.
But while some businesses have fallen by the wayside, others have opened, such as the Hampton by Hilton hotel, which this year welcomed its first guests.
Council leader Ben Fitter-harding believes the city has “shown incredible resilience” during the pandemic, despite its fluctuating fortunes.
“Covid has certainly accelerated change on the high street, but we’ve also seen positives as well as the negatives,” he said.
“I’m still really hopeful that big schemes like Nasons and Debenhams will move forward, and the Riverside development shows incredible confidence in the Canterbury market.
“To have the highest-end cinema open a new multi-screen site, along with high-end restaurants to accompany it, makes it a really exciting development.
“Canterbury has shown incredible resilience. Certainly in large part to its assets, but also its confidence.
“Obviously you’ve got the Cathedral, but you’ve also got the Marlowe, and they’ve worked incredibly hard to reopen and bring people back in.”
Cllr Fitter-harding believes 2022 will be a year of changing the way people see the city.
“As for the future, we’re now moving away from the Visit Canterbury model and looking to its partners like Visit Kent, which have much bigger scale, bigger reach and bigger ambition,” he said.
“There is a really positive outlook for 2022 and how we can change the way we’re presented to the world.
“I’m excited to be working with other stakeholders to make sure Canterbury is a prominent place around the world.”
This year has seen the council gain approval to press ahead with its vision to revamp the top end of the high street, with trees being replaced and new pavements installed.
The development will spell the end of the 663-year-old market, which will be booted out of its base between Superdrug and Metro Bank.
Stallholders now have one final year of trading on their long-standing pitches before being moved on, and the existing trees will be cut down in the summer
While the St George’s Street plan was rubber-stamped, another council scheme failed to get off the ground in 2021.
The authority wanted to install eight wooden retail kiosks outside the new multi-storey car park in Station Road West.
The bid attracted a host of objections, including from Kent Police, with one resident labelling it “one of the worst-ever planning applications”.
Despite the barrage of criticism, Cllr Fitter-harding says the plan is not dead in the water and will be tweaked.
He says the kiosk plan will be dropped in favour of open-air concession stalls.
“We’re still looking to do something along there,” he said.
“It’d be good to have some active trade going on, but there doesn’t need to be fixed units in place like the old plan.
“It definitely makes sense to have somewhere where you might want to grab a coffee or a newspaper or some flowers.
“We can have more dynamic
activity there, that can respond to the different seasons during the year. For example, there could be some Christmassy bits along there at the moment.
“It’s not impossible imagining that happening for next year.”
The council itself has had a “massive restructure” in 2021, and is eyeing up an office relocation to Whitefriars - likely in the floors above the old Topshop store and the RBS building in Rose Lane.
Chief executive Colin Carmichael
will step down in March and not be replaced, while the authority’s decision-making structure will change from a committee system to cabinet system next year.
“It’s all a big change for the way the district is managed, and a really positive one in terms of focusing on services, better bin collections, cleaner streets,” Cllr Fitter-harding said.
“That’s the initiative we’ve laid the ground work for in 2021 that we’ll be able to deliver in 2022. It might not sound like the most exciting thing for residents as it’s not glitzy and glittery, but it’s really important that we invest in our core services and make them the best they can be.”
What do you think? Email kentishgazette@thekmgroup. co.uk
‘To have the highest-end cinema open a new multi-screen site, along with high-end restaurants to accompany it, makes it a really exciting development’