How did 'derelict' become 'shic'? This is a question that often puzzles the Natives and those who revisit the town after many years away.

The simple answer to this supposed metamorphis of the town centre is strangely that we did nothing. Whilst evrywhere else changed, Whitstable did not. That isn't to say that the town council did not attempt to bring Whitstable up to date, for they tried so many times. The reasons that they failed fall into three categories: The layout of the central area itself - having evolved rather that being planned, financial considerations, and the opposition to change that was in the heart of the Natives.

Here we dip into history and take you to a council meeting in 1967 where once again the best laid plans of the council are laid to rest.

Whitstable Times and Tankerton & Swalecliffe Press

Friday, January 27 1967

Large scale central area redevelopment will not be coming to Whitstable in the near future.

Whitstable Urban District Council voted decisively against it when they met on Tuesday, despite attempts to keep a plan alive. The council supported the recommendation of its Planning and Development Committee that a sub-committee be set up to work out a moderate plan for the central area with special reference to the widening of Middle Wall.

Councillor ECD Terry attempted to revive the redevelopment scheme.

He moved that the council approve in principle the Copthall scheme as recently amended, and that it be proceeded with as soon as possible subject to the scheme being financially viable. He moved that the county council be asked to designate the area as a comprehensive development area and to reduce the provisions for shopping in the central area.

The final part of his motion was that Kent County Council and the Minister of Transport be asked to approve the improvement of the junction of Cromwell Road and Oxford Street, as a matter of urgency, and the improvement of and widening of Sea Street.

He asked if each part of the proposal could be voted upon separately, but Councillor David Helyar said the whole motion was out of order. Council chairman Councillor JE Bryon consulted the clerk, and ruled accordingly.

Said Councillor Terry: "I had the feeling that some members of the council would wish to stop the proper improvement of the town, especially when they know that January 31st is a very important date." He moved reference back of the original recommendations, but said: "This has probably put back any chance of any development in the central area for a very long time, because we have missed the boat after nine years. "I think it is pretty disgusting, especially when we know that the Chamber of Commerce, who were quoted as being against it, have now written and said their views are substantially as they were."

Councillor James Irvine seconded the motion, asking that it be referred back to a special meeting of the Planning and Development Committee. The suggestion that certain councillors were trying to sabotage the scheme was contested by Councillor Helyar. Many councillors, past and present, had tried to get facts and figures regarding the development, he said.

Councillor George Woodman had asked for maps to be circulated so they would know more, but the facts and figures had not come until a fortnight previously. "If we have lost a marvellous scheme, it is not the fault of those who have objected to it, but the fault of those who have not given the information earlier," he claimed.

Councillor HW Skinner said that he had spoken of the Chamber of Commerce's opposition to the scheme at the committee meeting. He denied that he ever said the chamber was opposed to central area redevelopment but he now realised that the traders could not be opposed to the new plan when the councillors had only had it for four days.

The council were told that they must have a developer as a partner if they were to succeed, he went on. In the financial appraisal of the Copthall plan, in July 1965, the development wanted 9.5 per cent return on his capital expenditure. Any surplus would be the ground rent to the council. The new plan the committee had considered entailed the demolition of 28 dwelling units in Cornwallis Circle and over 50 houses in the Middle Wall area with no plans for rehousing the displaced residents. The plan envisaged 20,000 square feet of shopping area. The town was already over-shopped and if the traders could not afford the new rentals he could foresee the High Street becoming derelict.

Councillor Terry objected to Councillor Skinner discussing the scheme when the motion before the council was for reference back of the committee minutes. Speaking on "the implication that we do not want this area improved," Councillor Skinner said his aim and ambition was to improve it, but not by a completely new area, resulting in a semi-derelict area.

Councillor EJC Greenhouse said there were points raised by Councillor Skinner which had to be answered. The Chamber of Commerce, he said, could not approve the new plan, but in 1963 they approved a shopping precinct in the region of the post office and told the council to get on with it quickly. The question of rehousing was another "red herring." Any people affected by a redevelopment order would have to be rehoused by the council.

Councillor Mrs CJ Grundon said she refused to accept a scheme, some of which she did not approve, "because if it is accepted by this council, it is accepted by us ignorant of its financial implications. "After seven long years, in my opinion, a scheme such as this at this stage of affairs should be presented with figures proving its viability. "Also, we are now asked by Copthalls to give a letter of interest. "How can we proceed with a scheme, giving a letter of intent - and here I would say I do not blame the developers; they have done a lot of work and will have a lot more to do - yet this council does not know to what extent the ratepayers will become involved?"

She said that a point made at a meeting she attended in Canterbury, that if all the central area schemes on paper came into being, there would not be enough sterling in the world to pay for them, had impressed her. "To my mind," she went on, "a moderate plan, taking into consideration the urgency regarding traffic problems, blight on central area, gaining income for the ratepayers by developing the derelict areas, formulating a workable plans as quickly as possible so that everyone working and living in the central area knows where they are going, as it were, is the sensible and logical thing to do. "In supporting a moderate plan - and this could well entail utilising some of the parts of the scheme that have been before this council, and I would also hope that points raised by the local Chamber of Commerce are seriously discussed - I am of the opinion that in the much nearer future things in the central area can begin to take shape."

Councillor George Woodman said that nothing has been done over a long period and the big plan was the reason why. Shopkeepers in the central area and people living there had been paralysed and the council had paralysed themselves. The area would be free again if the ban imposed by the big plan were lifted.

Councillor HN Hopkins said he had always opposed a large scheme for the area and had always been in favour of a moderate plan.

Opposing the reference back motion, Councillor KJ Barton said he hoped the sub-committee would get down to consider a plan. It was unfair to expect councillors to come to a decision on a plan after four days. "We want something we can be proud of," he said.

Councillor James Irvine said the council were back to a point reached several years before. On they went, occasionally changing councillors and changing ideas and still getting nowhere. Traders in the town must be thoroughly fed up, he said. Nobody wanted more than himself to preserve what was worth preserving. He claimed that the cost of widening Middle Wall would fall on the ratepayers, with no return of any kind. He said that the important part of the Copthall scheme recommendations was that approval would be "subject to it being financially viable," but there was no mention of that in the recommendations for a sub-committee. The allegations that the area had been paralysed were "pure pieces of attempts to mesmerise." Attempts had been made, he said, to frustrate efforts to do anything in the area.

Councillor Terry said there had been no financial assessment of the new plan and the purpose of his proposals had been to enable a financial appraisal to be made. There was no question of finally agreeing the plan, come what might. On the letter of intent, he said that the company had done a lot of work and the council should let them know that it would undertake the scheme if it could be proved it was financially viable.

The recommendation to turn down the Copthall plan was by two votes, with two people not voting, and he felt there was no reason why the council should not have second thoughts.

Councillor Skinner said that in 1965 the council had a most detailed appraisal by the treasurer of the Copthall plan and it was just not viable. The council was told that they would have a new scheme and appraisal in six months. Eighteen months later they had the report, but no appraisal. Was that getting on with doing something?, he asked.

In favour of the reference back were Councillors Bryon, Money, Willis, Terry, Irvine and Greenhouse. Against were Councillors Austen, Barton, Mason, Hopkins, Woodman, Mrs Brown, Harvey, Skinner, Mrs Grundon, Mrs Chapman and Helyar.

The planning committee's recommendation that a sub-committee be set up was passed by 11 votes to four.

It was to be another 7 years before Canterbury City Council absorbed the Whitstable Urban District Council and set about with some vigour the task of modernising the town centre and protecting the town from flooding. It's grandiouse schemes were overpowered by the same problems and so it ignored the town completely for many years until a new generation of Whitstable councillors, unencumbered by the past, infiltrated it and slowly changed the 'poor relation by the sea' title.

In the meantime outside interests took control of the Whitstable Oyster Company, having realised the valuable assets it was sitting on in terms of land and property and set about realising the potential of those derelict buildings.