Cabinet is asked on Thursday to tender a £3.225m rebuild of Hythe Street: wider footways, a two-way cycle lane, main works from January 2027.

Hythe Street is next in line for the town centre rebuild, and the council wants to start the main work in January 2027.

Cabinet meets on Thursday 24 September and is asked to approve two things: a consultation on the parking controls in the new design, and authority to put the construction work out to tender and award the contract. The scheme is Phase 3B of the Dartford Town Centre Regeneration project, and it is funded by £3.225m of Community Infrastructure Levy money allocated in February 2025 (Cabinet report, 24 September 2026).

That allocation was part of a larger pot. Cabinet set aside £7.441m of CIL funding in February 2025 for two streets, Spital Street and Hythe Street. Spital Street took £4.506m of it. Hythe Street gets the rest.

What the design changes

The general arrangement plans are published with the report. The main elements are:

  • wider footways along the street
  • a contraflow cycleway for the full length, so people can cycle both ways on what is a one-way street
  • modular granite paving and asphalt resurfacing to match the finished work in Spital Street
  • a wide granite-paved pedestrian priority area linking the Westgate site to Suffolk Road
  • less street clutter, with the drawings showing new trees, benches, cycle stands and lighting columns

The council’s stated aim is an east to west walking and cycling route from Essex Road to Suffolk Road, and a more direct way into the town centre from the station mound and the homes north of the railway.

The design has been altered to fit the Westgate development, which was granted planning permission recently. A separate report on Westgate goes to Cabinet in October.

The dates

Timeline for Hythe Street phase 3B: Cabinet decision 24 September 2026, parking consultation from late September, possible enabling works in November, no works mid-December to early January, main works from January 2027, statutory traffic order consultation in 2027
The programme set out in the Cabinet report. Graphic by Dartford Online.

If Cabinet agrees, the sequence in the report is:

  • as soon as possible after Thursday: consultation with businesses and residents on the proposed parking and loading controls
  • November 2026: some works may start, subject to Cabinet agreeing the Westgate report in October
  • mid-December to early January: nothing happens, because the highway authority bans works over Christmas
  • January 2027: the main Phase 3B works start
  • during 2027: formal statutory consultation on the Traffic Regulation Order that makes the parking and loading controls enforceable

Drainage for the Westgate development has to go in along Hythe Street, which means digging up the road. That is a separate contract, but the council wants the two co-ordinated, partly to cut costs and partly because the road closure it needs can also be used to resurface the curved junction between Spital Street and Hythe Street.

The maximum price is not public. The cost estimate and the ceiling on the tender sit in an exempt appendix, so residents cannot see what the council is prepared to pay. The report asks for delegated authority for the Deputy Chief Executive to award the contract as long as the winning bid comes in under that figure, and says anything above it comes back to Cabinet.

Why Spital Street took ten weeks longer

The same report finally explains the overrun that closed Spital Street for much of the year.

Work there is complete apart from snagging. The resurfacing was priced at seven nights in the programme submitted at tender. It was extended by a further ten weeks.

The reason was under the road. Site investigations and core samples had not picked up a concrete foundation layer beneath the surface. Once digging started and it was found, the council’s engineers concluded there was not enough flexible material above it to give the new road a minimum 25-year design life, and that it would crack and sink instead.

Kent County Council owns the road as highway authority. It instructed a full depth reconstruction: remove the concrete, excavate to 600mm, and rebuild the surface. That work was noisy enough that the road had to be closed rather than coned.

The council says the final cost still came in within the £4.506m budget.

The other town centre item: a survey you can fill in

Cabinet is also asked to approve public input on a Dartford Town Centre Masterplan, agreed in principle back in October 2024. The document is meant to set design and quality expectations for new development, which matters more now because the borough council is due to be abolished in 2028 (masterplan report).

The report proposes an online survey running from the end of September into October, for four weeks. It will ask about three goals: a vibrant and multi-functional town centre, sustainable and environmentally friendly living, and a strong identity and civic pride. Residents will also be able to upload their own photographs of places in the town centre they think the masterplan should deal with.

The evidence behind it is a baseline analysis published with the agenda. Among its findings:

  • Dartford station handles 4.5 million passengers a year, the busiest in Kent
  • the town’s population grew by 39% in 20 years, the fastest of any Kent local authority, and is projected to reach about 135,000 by 2032
  • the town centre’s core frontage had a vacancy rate of 5% in 2024, against a national town centre rate of 14%

That last figure is worth a footnote. The council’s own annual survey of 2 to 64 High Street put vacancy at 5% in 2023/24 and 2% in 2024/25, so the baseline document is quoting the older year rather than the most recent count we reported on 3 September.

What it means for you

If you have a business on Hythe Street. The consultation on parking and loading bays starts within weeks, not months, and the report says comments will be worked into the contract documents. That is the point at which a loading bay can still be moved.

If you park there. The bays are being altered as part of the redesign. The controls only become enforceable after a Traffic Regulation Order is advertised in 2027, and that is a second chance to object. Current rules are in our parking in Dartford guide.

If you drive or walk through. Expect the road dug up for drainage before the main works, and expect a long closure. Spital Street shows how far a programme can move. Our roadworks and travel page tracks what is shut.

If you want a say on the town centre as a whole. The masterplan survey is due within days and runs for four weeks.

Cabinet meets at 7pm on Thursday 24 September in Room B12 at the Civic Centre, Home Gardens.

Sources