Be Excellent To Each Other

Hello everyone, after the superb advice about decent areas to stay in Cardiff, I wonder if anyone could offer the same expertise about Kent?
Basically hoping to find out where are nice areas in and around Kent, within commuting distance of Dungeness power station. Ideally it would be close to nice restaurants and bars with a park or something for walking a dog, but not really hugely fussy the main thing is just to be able to distinguish the really lovely areas from the less lovely areas without us having local knowledge. It's for my parents by the way and they'll be renting a 2 or 3 bedroom place if everything goes to plan, by February. Any help much appreciated, thanks.

Dungeness is practically in East Sussex. So you could be looking at Rye which is about 20 minutes from the plant. Small market town with a harbour and a railway station. Quite pleasant.

Also, Axons.

Hastings is the one of the nearest big towns - I liked the front and the town centre, although parts of the suburbs have a less than salubrious reputation. Rye is nice in the middle but likely to be pretty spendy. Folkstone I've not been to, or Ashford, but they're likely to have the most choice rental wise. The whole area is really pretty rural, so unless you're bang in the middle of a town you're likely to have dog walking opps right there.

Hastings is a good 45 minutes away across country roads. Away from the tourist bits it's a shithole with a hell of alot of problems thanks to people from the poorest parts of London being rehoused there. Also high unemployment and disproportionate drug problem for a town of it's size. That said it's no Morecambe but it is IMO the worst town on the south coast (Portsmouth is a city so doesn't count).

My friend's parents had a second home in Hastings (I think they have retired there now) and it was always quite nice when I went to visit (not been in 15-20 years mind) but he, my friend, was always mentioning about avoiding certain areas.

I believe it has gone downhill since then too. I used to visit various places around the whole area as a child (and my dad used to go out sea fishing around that area) but that's going even further back and I really couldn't say with much conviction where's good and where's not good.

Sorry.

I do have lovely memories of all the little places on the Romney, Hyth and Dymnchurch railway!

Malc

Unemployment is about twice the national average there. What makes it worse is that the surrounding area has lower than average unemployment. It's not just the recession either, it's been like it for long before. It's a really oddity.

Excellent, I'll recommend Rye and I think they'd mentioned Ashford. I'll probably tell them to avoid Hastings.

Any particular areas within Ashford that are good? They currently in Whitchurch in Cardiff who was very helpfully recommended by our Welsh posters and in particular DBSnappa if I remember correctly.

Sadly, my Ashford correspondent is currently on holiday, without internet. If you can wait until after Christmas, I can ask her for "the down-low", as the kids say.

Ashford looks like a good choice if they want connections to elsewhere as well.

That would great Squirt I think they're going to try and visit the area before Christmas but I doubt they'll be organising the rental before January.

Hello.

I'm from dymchurch. Not too far from Dungeness!

Ashford is a dive. You'd be better off staying in a nicer smaller seaside town/village.

Rye would be nice. Maybe somewhere smaller like new romney. Depends how you're gonna get to the power station.

Folkestone would be a tad too far away. looking at nearly an hour drive there. And not the nicest of places.
Everywhere by the sea you could walk the dog on the beach. Or there's loads of country walks and stuff when you go a few minutes inland.

If you're going to Dungeness, you could stay in Dungeness?

We stayed at this amazing place (was about 10 of us)

http://www.living-architecture.co.uk/the-houses/shingle-house/overview/

Belongs to Alain de Botton or summat and was pretty special.

Dungeness is an amazingly otherworldly place to walk around at night, though admittedly not masses to do other than shelter from the elements, so trips to the aforementioned Rye would be wise.