10 Good reasons to visit...Dartford

Above: The Dojo

Above: The Mick Jagger Centre

1 Town centre

Over the years Dartford town centre has suffered from decline and its reputation as a thriving market town has been eroded, that there were not enough good shops, and its streets felt unfriendly and unattractive. However, all this is about to change.
Dartford Borough Council, backed by over £20 million of Government funding, is committed to regenerating the town centre over the next 10 years, creating a more vibrant, attractive and welcoming place for residents and visitors alike.
The town centre is to be revitalised in a £94 million regeneration project, restoring Dartford’s reputation as a major retail and leisure centre.

2 Princes Park Community Stadium

The completion of Dartford’s brand new football stadium, Princes Park, in time for the start of the 2006/07 season has not only given local team Dartford FC a brand new home but also a jubilant return to the borough following a 14-year exile. The Darts’ first match at home in the town for 14 years was a sell-out, with 4,097 fans watching the festivities and enjoying the home team’s 4-2 victory. The £7.5m Princes Park Community Stadium, which also includes facilities such as clubhouse, with function rooms and bar, community pitch, public plaza and gardens, is also one of the most ecologically sound ever built, with timber cladding, its own water recycling eco-system and a grassed roof.

3 Dartford Dojo

The state-of-the-art Dartford Judo Centre, opened by HRH The Princess Royal in March 2006, is one of the most impressive judo facilities outside of Japan. The £4.5 million centre is set to play a key role in the build up to Beijing 2008 and London 2012.
The £4.5m centre will be home for the internationally renowned Dartford Judo Club and is the first purpose-built training centre to meet Olympic training standards since London was chosen to host the Olympic Games in 2012.
Designed to international standard specifications by make architects the Dojo, which is Japanese for 'training place', the Dartford version is the finest purpose-built Judo centre in the country, with space for up to 400 spectators.
The centre also includes seminar and meeting space, catering facilities and a social area.

4 The Orchard Theatre

The Orchard is a 920-seat theatre serving people in and around Dartford. It has played host to many of the biggest names in entertainment and provides a wide range of drama, dance, music and entertainment for the whole community. Local am-dram and music societies, youth groups and dancing schools make use of the theatre, and its facilities are available for general hire.

5 The Mick Jagger Centre

The Mick Jagger Centre opened in March 2000 as a community music and arts centre based at Dartford Grammar School, which raised the £2.2m needed to fund the project’s development.
The official opening by HRH The Duke of Kent, with Mick Jagger himself present, along with Jerry Hall and three of their children, attracted global media attention.
The technologically sophisticated centre boasts two performance areas, a recording studio, practice rooms, a midi technology suite, exhibition areas and a giant 36-screen video wall.
In 2004, the centre was further extended by the addition of a Music Technology suite and store room, a visual arts suite, a dance/drama room and two further teaching and rehearsal areas. The re-siting of the school’s dining hall and kitchen to the centre further added to the range of activities the centre can manage.

6 Dartford Borough Museum

The history of museums in Dartford can tentatively be traced back to the latter half of the 18th century, when Dr John Latham, discoverer of the Dartford Warbler, had his own private museum collection based in the town.
The establishment of a town museum open to the public was the brainchild of Mr E. C. Youens, a local photographer and antiquary. The chance discovery of the old Dartford stocks in March 1906 prompted him to write a letter to The Dartford Chronicle stressing the importance of preserving local antiquities and suggesting that a town museum should be established for this purpose.
Initially part of Dartford Central Library, since 1956 Borough Museum has stood alone and offers an impressive range of services to the local community, particularly in the field of education and object identification.
More than 8,000 people visit each year, a fact that would bring great satisfaction to the small band of enthusiastic Dartfordians who pressed for the establishment of a town museum in the early years of the last century.

7 The Bridge

Situated next to the QEII Bridge and close to the River Thames, The Bridge is the first of the major regeneration projects underway in the Thames Gateway.
Developed by ProLogis Developments Limited and Dartford Borough Council, The Bridge will transform a 264-acre brownfield site into a dynamic new community for the information age.
Along with 1.5 million square feet of business space and 1,500 new homes, it will include a range of innovative facilities, such as a primary school of the future and the new Fastrack public transport system to create a lively neighbourhood where people will want to live, work and bring up their families.
The 1,500 new homes will be built in districts with their own distinct characters and some will include live/work facilties to encourage budding entrepreneurs. Each home will be fully equipped for modern living with broadband connections and real-time access to Fastrack travel information.

8 Fastrack

Fastrack is an innovative transport system linking key destinations between Dartford and Gravesend town centres. The high-speed luxury buses run every 10 minutes and operate on a dedicated network of roads.
Positioned in the hierarchy of public transport between the railway service and current bus services, Fastrack will ultimately connect nearly all of the major existing and new developments in Dartford and Gravesham, with core express routes on which only Fastrack services will be allowed to run.

9 Ebbsfleet Valley

Plans are underway to transform Eastern Quarry into Ebbsfleet Valley, a vibrant new community with more than 6,000 new homes set in a series of four ‘villages’.
Homes will benefit from more than 20 acres of new parks, lakes and woodland areas and will be connected to Ebbsfleet, Bluewater, Dartford and Gravesend by Fastrack.
Each village’s character will be established through careful masterplanning and design guides will be introduced to ensure a consistent level of high quality and visual identity throughout the development. All residents will have easy access to local shops, parks and community facilities.
At the heart of the development will be the market centre, with leisure, retail, education and other social and community facilities. The scheme also provides lots of employment opportunities, with a total of 1.29 million sq ft of office space.

10 Ingress Park

The award-winning, Ingress Park is a beautiful riverside development and a fine example of quality design and architecture which transformed a former paper mill site in Greenhithe into a living, breathing community.
Framed between the Thames waterfront and extensive woodlands, Ingress Park has eight distinct character areas, with a range of individual houses and apartments each influenced by its location and architecture.
Key features, such as the restored historic Abbey and 11 surrounding follies, will be reflected in the style and materials of each home.
With its centrepiece tree-lined boulevard, heritage trails, waterfront access and sweeping views over the river, Ingress Park is designed to “calm the spirit and feed the soul”, allowing people to regain a real sense of community and replace pressure with peace.

Words by Sarah Sturt, pictures by Manu Palomeque