The Dover Beacon
The Bench Street area of Dover town is the location for one of the district council’s most exciting regeneration projects – The Dover Beacon. This landmark building will be home to a new creative and digital learning hub for the district.
High-quality flexible, affordable office space will be available for start-ups and small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to build their success. There will also be new open space alongside the River Dour and improved public realm in the area.
The project, part funded by the UK Government, will deliver over £90 million of economic benefit to the district, including the regeneration of the wider town centre area. Dover District Council has match funded the £21.3 million invested in the project through the government’s Levelling Up Fund and Future High Streets Fund.
Lee Evans Partnership are the architects behind the design for the Dover Beacon project and you can read more about their vision to raise aspirations, provide opportunities and inspire generations on their website. LEP Architecture and LEP Planning have worked with Dover District Council, Jenner Group and other partners to deliver the scheme which will breathe new life and purpose into a prominent and complex site.
The Dover Beacon will expand the town’s presence of East Kent Colleges Group, one of Kent’s largest and most innovative vocational education providers.
In addition to enhancing Dover’s growing reputation as a hub for creative businesses this unashamedly contemporary styled building will open the potential for improving the public realm in this part of the town with links to bars and restaurants of Dover’s Market Square.
The building itself will seek to foster collaboration and knowledge-sharing linked by a striking central atrium, with a flexible exhibition space, cafe seating and break out areas. It takes its cues from its historic surroundings in a way that will enhance and not detract, creating a new landmark building of opportunity for Dover town.
Dover Access Improvements
Kent County Council was awarded £45 million in 2023 for the Dover Access Improvements project to improve the flow of traffic from the UK to the EU, with more border control points and a new exit route to help the Port of Dover operate more efficiently and reduce congestion on local roads in Dover.
It will reduce the economic and supply chain impact caused when cross channel services are disrupted including holdings measure for freight traffic on the A20 and M20. Checks will also be re-sequenced and border security measures enhanced. Traffic flow through and around Dover will be improved by increasing capacity of the border processing facilities in the Port.
By addressing those issues, it will further enhance the appeal of the Dover district for local industry, business and tourism while also improving operations at the Port of Dover, the UK’s most important point of trade with the EU.
Doug Bannister, CEO, Port of Dover: “This will be a transformational project, delivering the next evolution of Britain’s busiest ferry terminal with a reconfigured layout and enhanced border control points to help secure traffic flow and capacity for the long term. It is recognition of the Port’s fundamental economic role in supporting levelling up across the nation. It is also a demonstration by the government of its commitment to our future success and that of Dover and Kent more widely.”